[meteorite-list] NASA Radar Reveals Features on Asteroid 2010 JL33

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:37:55 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201101130037.p0D0btve020729_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-011

NASA Radar Reveals Features on Asteroid
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 11, 2011

Radar imaging at NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar in the California
desert on Dec. 11 and 12, 2010, revealed defining characteristics of
recently discovered asteroid 2010 JL33. The images have been made into a
short movie that shows the celestial object's rotation and shape. A team
led by Marina Brozovic, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif., made the discovery.

"Asteroid 2010 JL33 was discovered on May 6 by the Mount Lemmon Survey
in Arizona, but prior to the radar observations, little was known about
it," said Lance Benner, a scientist at JPL. "By using the Goldstone
Solar System Radar, we can obtain detailed images that reveal the
asteroid's size, shape and rotational rate, improve its orbit, and even
make out specific surface features."

Data from the radar reveal 2010 JL33 to be an irregular, elongated
object roughly 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) wide that rotates once every
nine hours. The asteroid's most conspicuous feature is a large concavity
that may be an impact crater. The images in the movie span about 90
percent of one rotation.

At the time it was imaged, the asteroid was about 22 times the distance
between Earth and the moon (8.5 million kilometers, or 5.3 million
miles). At that distance, the radio signals from the Goldstone radar
dish used to make the images took 56 seconds to make the roundtrip from
Earth to the asteroid and back to Earth again.

The 70-meter (230-foot) Goldstone antenna in California's Mojave Desert,
part of NASA's Deep Space network, is one of only two facilities capable
of imaging asteroids with radar. The other is the National Science
Foundation???s 1,000-foot-diameter (305 meters) Arecibo Observatory in
Puerto Rico. The capabilities of the two instruments are complementary.
The Arecibo radar is about 20 times more sensitive, can see about
one-third of the sky, and can detect asteroids about twice as far away.
Goldstone is fully steerable, can see about 80 percent of the sky, can
track objects several times longer per day, and can image asteroids at
finer spatial resolution. To date, Goldstone and Arecibo have observed
272 near-Earth asteroids and 14 comets with radar. JPL manages the
Goldstone Solar System Radar and the Deep Space Network for NASA.

More information about asteroid radar research is at:
http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/ .

More information about the Deep Space Network is at:
http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn .

DC Agle (818) 393-9011
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
agle at jpl.nasa.gov

2011-011
Received on Wed 12 Jan 2011 07:37:55 PM PST