Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (388945) 2008 TZ3 close encounter: an image – 2 May 2020
Next 10 May 2020, the potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) (388945) 2008 TZ3 will have a safe close with our planet, reaching a minimum distance from us of 2.8 millions of km, 7.3 times the average distance the Moon. Last night, we captured it, here it is our image.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (388945) 2008 TZ3 – 2 May 2020.
The image presented above comes from a single, 180-seconds exposure, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why stars show as trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the center of the image, marked by an arrow.
At the imaging time, 2008 TZ3 was at about 6.4 millions of km from the Earth and it was on its way approaching us. Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2008 TZ3 was discovered by the Mt Lemmon Survey in Arizona in 2008.
This 220-490 meters large asteroid will reach its minimum distance 2.8 millions of km) from us on 10 May 2020, at 14:17 UTC. Of course, there were no risks at all for our planet.
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