The famed Palomar Observatory in North County photographed an SUV-sized asteroid last weekend that NASA says set the record for getting closer to Earth than a known asteroid in the vicinity.
The NEA – which measures 10 feet to 20 feet above – passed within 1,830 miles of the earth above the southern Indian Ocean while traveling at 8 miles per second. NASA says the object would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere if it had been on an impact trajectory.
Asteroid 2020 QG, as it is known, was photographed by Caltech’s Zwicky Transient Facility, one of the instruments at Palomar, an observatory also operated by Caltech.
The photo was taken by Zwicky at 9:08 a.m. Saturday and appears as a white streak against a fuzzy black background.
Paul Chodas, director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement, “It’s really cool to see a small asteroid come in, because we’re dramatically increasing the Earth’s gravity. its trajectory can bend.
“Our calculations show that this asteroid rotated 45 degrees as it swung across our planet.”
Asteroid 2020QG is microscopically compared to the fictional “Texas-sized” asteroid that threatens Earth in the movie “Armageddon.” NASA says that NEAs like 2020 QG pass Earth just a few times a year.
The observatory is located on Palomar Mountain, about 40 miles northeast of San Diego. It began exploring the universe in 1949 and helped transform astronomy and physics, most notably its discoveries about galaxies, quasars, supernovae, and planets that exist outside the solar system.
