[meteorite-list] NASA Releases Radar Movie of Asteroid 2005 YU55

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2011 16:19:05 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201111090019.pA90J5ux020210_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-346

NASA Releases Radar Movie of Asteroid 2005 YU55
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
November 08, 2011

PASADENA, Calif. -- Scientists working with the 230-foot-wide (70-meter)
Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., have generated a short
movie clip of asteroid 2005 YU55. The images were generated from data
collected at Goldstone on Nov. 7, 2011, between 11:24 a.m. and 1:35 p.m.
PST (2:24 p.m. and 4:35 p.m. EST). They are the highest-resolution
images ever generated by radar of a near-Earth object.

The short movie clip can be found at: http://1.usa.gov/uVJvmS_ .

Each of the six frames required 20 minutes of data collection by the
Goldstone radar. At the time, 2005 YU55 was approximately 860,000 miles
(1.38 million kilometers) away from Earth. Resolution is 4 meters per
pixel.

"The movie shows the small subset of images obtained at Goldstone on
November 7 that have finished processing. By animating a sequence of
radar images, we can see more surface detail than is visible otherwise,"
said radar astronomer Lance Benner, the principal investigator for the
2005 YU55 observations, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif. "The animation reveals a number of puzzling structures
on the surface that we don't yet understand. To date, we've seen less
than one half of the surface, so we expect more surprises."

The trajectory of asteroid 2005 YU55 is well understood. At the point of
closest approach today at 3:28 p.m. PST (6:28 p.m. EST/2328 UTC), it was
no closer than 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers), as measured from the
center of Earth. The gravitational influence of the asteroid will have
no detectable effect on anything here on Earth, including our planet's
tides or tectonic plates. Although 2005 YU55 is in an orbit that
regularly brings it to the vicinity of Earth (and Venus and Mars), the
2011 encounter with Earth is the closest this space rock has come for at
least the last 200 years.

The last time a space rock as big came as close to Earth was in 1976,
although astronomers did not know about the flyby at the time. The next
known approach of an asteroid this large will be in 2028.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing
close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The
Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard,"
discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their
orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch . 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

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

2011-346
Received on Tue 08 Nov 2011 07:19:05 PM PST