Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 YC close encounter: an image – 21 Dec. 2024.
We observed the near-Earth Asteroid 2024 YC on its way to a safe close encounter with the Earth on 22 Dec., when it came as close as 461.000 km from us, 160% of the average lunar distance.
Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 YC close encounter: 21 Dec. 2024.
The image above comes from a single 120-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 fast apparent motion of the asteroid, so it looks like a sharp dot of light in the center, while stars leave long, bright streaks on the background.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2024 YC was at about 880.000 km from us, almost at its minimum distance.
This 9m-20m large asteroid reached its minimum distance (about 461.000 km, 160% of the average lunar distance) from us on 22 Dec. 2024, at 23:59 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there were no risks at all for our planet.
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