Astronomers Capture Images of Asteroid 2012 BX34's Close Flyby of Earth

By Nancy Atkinson - January 27, 2012 at 5:27 PM UTC | Planetary Science
2012BX34_animation_january_27_2012.gif

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Small asteroid 2012 BX34 skimmed past Earth today, January 27, 2012, with closest approach at about 15:25 UT, and it passed only about 59,044 km (36,750 miles) or about ~0.2 lunar distance (or 0.0004 AU) above the Earth's surface. It was discovered just a few days ago by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona.

Above is an animation created by image from Ernesto Guido, Giovanni Sostero & Nick Howes from the Remanzacco Observatory in Italy. However, they took this series of images remotely from the

iTelescope

(formerly called GRAS), near Mayhill, New Mexico, using a 0.10-m f/5 reflector + CCD.

"According to its absolute magnitude (H=27.6) this asteroid has an estimated diameter of roughly 8-18 meters, so it is very small," the team said

on their website.

"At the moment of our images from New Mexico on January 27, 11:04UT, 2012 BX34 was moving at about ~318.86 "/min and its magnitude was ~15. At the moment of its close approach around 15UT of today, 2012 BX34 will be bright as magnitude ~13.8 and moving at ~1810 "/min."

Below is a single 120-seconds exposure showing the object as a ~11-arcminutes trail (due to its fast speed). Also below is a video from Peter Lake using his telescope in New Mexico remotely from Melbourne Australia, who took a series of 11 images just 6 hours before its closest approach.

[caption id="attachment_93047" align="alignleft" width="580" caption="Single image of 2012 BX34's flyby of Earth on January 27, 2012, at 11:04 UTC, using the iTelescope telescope in New Mexico, USA. E. Credit: Guido, G. Sostero & N. Howes. "]

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See this link

to see an image taken by legendary comet and asteroid hunter Rob McNaught, using a telescope in Sliding Spring, Australia. McNaught's data was used by the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex to obtain radar imagery to determine BX34's shape, size and orbital parameters. At this point, there are various estimates of the asteroid's size, which will be refined from all the data gathered by the various telescopes. But astronomers from JPL's Asteroid Watch said the space rock was small enough that it wouldn't have survived a trip through Earth's atmosphere if it had been on a collision course with our planet.

The team from the Remanzacco Observatory have a great table on their website, the the top 20 closest approaches by NEOs (Near-Earth Objects) sorted by nominal distance. The table was computed on the

NASA/Neo-JPL website

.

Thanks to all the astronomers for sharing their images with Universe Today. We'll add more as they become available.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com