Near-Earth asteroid 2020 MF1 very close encounter: a image – 26 June 2020
Tomorrow, the near-Earth asteroid 2020 MF1 will safely approach our planet, reaching a minimum distance from the Earth of about 495000 km, 1.3 times the average distance of the Moon. We have just captured it.
Near-Earth Asteroid 2020 MF1 – 26 June 2020.
The image above comes from a single, 300-seconds exposure, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a bright and sharp dot of light in the center of the image, marked by an arrow.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2020 MF1 was at about 1.3 millions of km from the Earth and it was still safely approaching us. It was discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey on 17 June 2020.
This 7.8-17 meters large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (about 495000 km) from us on 27 June 2020, at 21:12 UTC. Of course, there were no risks at all for our planet.
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