Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP) – A mysterious object orbiting Earth temporarily is a 54-year-old rocket, not the next planet, astronomers confirmed Wednesday.
Observations by a telescope in Hawaii have its identity, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in September. But Paul Chodas, NASA’s top asteroid expert, quickly suspects that it is Surveyor 2’s Centaur Upper Rocket Stage, a failed 1966 lunar landing mission. Size estimates put it in the range of the old centurion, which was about 32 feet (10 m) long and 10 feet (3 m) in diameter.
A team led by Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona used the infrared telescope in Hawaii to observe the mysterious object, but – on Tuesday – 1971 – the Centaur still revolves around the Earth. Matching data from images.
“Today’s news was very enjoyable!” Chodas said via email. “It was the teamwork that wrapped up this puzzle.”
20 The last budget, formally known as the 2020 SO, entered massive, ops orbit around the Earth last month and, on Tuesday, made its closest approach at just 31,000 miles (50,476 kilometers). It will depart the neighborhood in March and re-shoot in its own orbit around the sun. His next return: 2036.
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