Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2014 CU13: an image (27 Feb. 2014)
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2014 CU13: 27 Feb. 2014
On 12 Feb. 2014, the Minor Planet Center announced the discovery by the Mt Lemmon Survey of the potentially hazardous asteroid 2014 CU13. Looking at the orbit, it was clear that this 180-meters large body was going to have a close approach with the Earth next 11 Mar., with a minimum distance of about 3 millions of km, more or less 8 times the mean distance of the Moon. Needless to say, this is a very safe distance (the radius of the Earth is about 6.300 km).
At Virtual Telescope we took a few images of 2014 CU13, remotely using the Planewave 17 robotic unit. The robotic mount tracked the asteroid, so stars are showing as trails.
Above is the average of 4, 120-seconds exposures. We will show this asteroid live, online, next 9 Mar. 2014.
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