Earlier today (July 28, 2020), the near-Earth asteroid 2020 OY4 had an extremely close, but safe, encounter with our planet, reaching a minimum distance from Earth of approximately 26,000 miles (42,000 km), less than 11 % of the average distance from the moon. We managed to capture his image as it went by.
This space rock is estimated to be between 7.5 and 17 feet (2.3 to 5.2 meters) across. You reached your minimum distance from us on July 28, 2020 at 05:32 UTC (translate UTC at your time). Of course, there was no risk to our planet. According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory:
Space rocks less than about 25 meters (82 feet) will likely burn when they enter Earth's atmosphere and cause little or no damage.
If a rocky meteoroid over 25 meters but less than a kilometer (just over 1/2 mile) hit Earth, it would likely cause local damage in the impact area.
Mount Lemmon's survey discovered the asteroid on July 26, 2020.
The image above comes from a single 120-second exposure, taken remotely with the “Elena” robotic unit (PlaneWave 17? + Paramount ME + SBIG STL-6303E) available from Virtual Telescope.
The telescope tracked the asteroid's apparent rapid motion, which is why stars show up as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a bright, sharp point of light in the center of the image, marked by an arrow.
Was the Astrograph Dall-Kirkham Telescope corrected 17 used? -F / 6.8 (432/2939 mm) from the Virtual Telescope Project to capture the above image of asteroid 2020 OY4. It is called "Elena" for the mother of Gianluca Masi. Read more about this telescope.
Bottom line: image and information on asteroid 2020 OY4, which spanned 11% of the moon's distance on July 28, 2020.
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