Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2020 XR close encounter: an image – 31 Oct. 2024.
We imaged the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2020 XR, going to have a close, but obviously safe encounter with the Earth next 4 Dec., coming as close as 2.2 millions of km from us.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2020 XR: 31 Oct. 2024.
The image above comes from the average of five, 300-second exposures, 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 red arrow, while stars leave bright streaks on the background. The asteroid was faint, moving in a very dense star field, in the Milky Way, so it is hard to find it without the help of the arrow.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2020 XR was at about 33 million of km from us and approaching.
This 450-meter large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (about 2.2 millions of km, 5.7 times the average lunar distance) from us on 4 Dec. 2024, at 05:27 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.
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