Gettysburg

Gettysburg College Observatory observes asteroid passing closer to us than the moon


Asteroid 2005 YU55On November 8th, the asteroid YU55 passed within about 200,000 miles of the Earth. To capture this rare (and a little frightening as the asteroid had a diameter of around a ¼ mile) event, the observatory telescope took a series of 8 ten-second exposures which were then stitched together into a movie. The animation shows just how fast the asteroid is moving with respect to the earth (about 13km/s or 29,000 miles per hour, according to NASA). In fact, it is moving so fast that in each image it looks like a streak, rather than a dot, over the 10 second exposure.

Physics

Campus Box 405
300 North Washington St.
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
(717) 337-6020

© 2013 Gettysburg College. All Rights Reserved

logo2