Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2008 OS7 close encounter: an image – 31 Jan. 2024
On 2 Feb. 2024, the potentially hazardous asteroid 2008 OS7 will have a close and obviously safe encounter with the Earth. It will come as close as 2.8 million of km, about 7.4 times the average distance of the Moon. We observed it on its way to us.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2008 OS7: 31 Jan. 2024.
SEE also a time-lapse here!
The image above comes from a single 180-second exposure, remotely taken with the Celestron C14+Paramount ME+SBIG ST8-XME robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project. The telescope tracked the asteroid, this is why the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light, while star leaves long, bright streaks on the background.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2008 OS7 was at about 4 million of km from the Earth and it was slowly approaching our planet. The asteroid was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on 30 July 2008.
This 210m – 480m large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (about 2.8 million of km, about 7.4 times the average distance of our Moon) from us on 2 Feb. 2024, at 14:41 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.
We will show this asteroid live soon after the fly-by: our feed is scheduled for Feb. 2, starting at 18:00 UTC!
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