Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 RQ5 close encounter: an image – 10 Sept. 2024
On 15 Sept. 2024, the near-Earth asteroid 2024 RQ5 will have a safe close encounter with the Earth, coming as close as 431.000 km, about 1,1 times the average lunar distance. We observed it on its way to us.
Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 RQ5: 10 Sept. 2024
The image above comes from a single 300-second exposure, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″ + Paramount MEII + SBIG STL-6303E) 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 RQ5 was at about 2,2 millions of km from us, on its way to its fly-by with the Earth.
This 6,6 – 15 m large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (about 431.000 km from the center of the Earth, 1.1 times the average lunar distance) from us on 15 Sept. 2024, at 05:57 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.
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