[meteorite-list] Lost Asteroid Rediscovered With A Little Help From ESA (Asteroid 2008 SE85)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:12:31 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201210121612.q9CGCVsv021212_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM3KS2S18H_index_0.html

Lost asteroid rediscovered with a little help from ESA
European Space Agency
12 October 2012

A potentially hazardous asteroid once found but then lost has been
rediscovered and its orbit confirmed by a determined amateur astronomer
working with ESA's space hazards programme. The half-kilometre object
will not threaten Earth anytime soon.
 
Amateur astronomer Erwin Schwab, from Germany, conducted his asteroid
hunt in September during a regular observation slot at ESA's Optical
Ground Station in Tenerife, Spain, sponsored by the Agency's Space
Situational Awareness programme.

He was determined to rediscover the object, known by its catalogue name
as 2008SE85.

Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2008SE85 was discovered in September 2008
by the Catalina Sky Survey, and observed by a few observatories to
October 2008.
 
Asteroid considered lost
 
Since then, however, nobody had observed the object and predictions for
its current position had become so inaccurate that the object was
considered to be "lost".
 
Erwin planned his observing sequence to look for the object within the
area of uncertainty of its predicted position. After only a few hours,
he found it about 2?? - four times the apparent size of the Moon - away
from its predicted position.

"I found the object on the evening of Saturday, 15 September, while
checking the images on my computer," says Erwin.

"I then saw it again at 01:30 on Sunday morning - and that was my
birthday! It was one of the nicest birthday presents."
 
These new observations of the roughly 500 m-diameter asteroid will allow
a much more accurate determination of its orbit and help confirm that it
will not be a threat to Earth anytime soon.

Potentially Hazardous Asteroids approach Earth closer than about 7
million km; about 1300 are known.

When a new asteroid is discovered, follow-up observations must be done
within a few hours and then days to ensure it is not subsequently lost.
 
USA-based Minor Planet Center acknowledges the find
 
Asteroid position measurements are collected from observers worldwide by
the US-based Minor Planet Center, which acknowledged the rediscovery of
2008SE85 by releasing a Minor Planet Electronic Circular announcing the
new observations <http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K12/K12S01.html>.
 
"These observations were part of the strong collaboration that we have
with a number of experienced backyard observers," says Detlef Koschny,
Head of the Near-Earth Object segment of ESA's Space Situational
Awareness programme.

"It's not the first time our collaboration with amateurs has scored such
a success. Members of the Teide Observatory Tenerife Asteroid Survey
started by Matthias Busch from Heppenheim, Germany, discovered two new
near-Earth objects during the last year while working with our observing
programme."
 
 
Contact <http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/SSA/SEMTAMRJR4G_0.html>
Received on Fri 12 Oct 2012 12:12:31 PM PDT