Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 KA2 very close encounter: an image – 3 June 2024.

On 4 June 2024, the near-Earth asteroid 2024 KA2 will have a very close, but safe encounter with the Earth. It will come as close as 350000 of km, about 91% the average lunar distance. We observed it while it was approaching us.

Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 KA2: 3 June 2024.

Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 KA2: 3 June 2024.

The image above comes from a single 300-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 apparent motion of the asteroid, so it looks like a sharp dot of light, indicated with a white arrow, while stars leave bright streaks on the background.

At the imaging time, asteroid 2024 KA2 was at about 820000 of km from us and it was slowly approaching the Earth. This asteroid was discovered by the Panstarrs Survey on 31 May 2024.

This 7m – 16m large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (about 350000 km, 91% of the average lunar distance) from us on 4 June 2024, at 13:46 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.

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