NASA’s Deep Space Network is keeping a close eye on one of the longest asteroids ever seen by planetary radar.

The rectangular asteroid, more than three times its width, passed safely by Earth on February 3 at a distance of about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers, or slightly less than five times the distance between the Moon and Earth). . Although an asteroid named 2011 AG5 isn’t at risk of hitting our planet, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California are keeping a close eye on the object and making invaluable observations to help determine its size, spin, surface details, and much more. form matters

This close approach provided the first close-up look at the asteroid since its discovery in 2011, revealing an object about 1,600 feet (500 meters) long and about 500 feet (150 meters) wide – comparable in size to the Empire State Building. The powerful 70-foot (70-metre) Goldstone Solar System Radar antenna at the Deep Space Network facility near Barstow, California, revealed the size of this extremely long asteroid.

“Of the 1,040 near-Earth objects observed by Planetary Radar to date, this is one of the most elongated objects we’ve seen,” said lead scientist Lance Banner, who helped lead the observations at JPL.

This collage shows six planetary radar observations of 2011 AG5, one day after the asteroid approached Earth on February 3. About the size of the Empire State Building, 2011 AG5 is one of the longest asteroids observable with planetary radar. history.

Radar observations of Goldstone were made between January 29 and February 4, and a few more details were captured: Besides the large, wide concavity in one of the two hemispheres, the asteroid 2011 AG5 has fine dark and light regions that may indicate small-scale surface features. several tens of meters in diameter. And if the asteroid were viewed through the human eye, it would appear as dark as coal. Observations also confirmed that 2011 AG5 had a slow spin speed and took nine hours to complete a full spin.

Goldstone’s radar observations provide an important measurement of the asteroid’s orbit around the Sun, as well as a better understanding of what this object looks like up close. The radar provides accurate distance measurements that can help scientists at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) pinpoint the asteroid’s orbital path. Asteroid 2011 AG5 orbits the Sun every 621 days and will not have a very close encounter with Earth until 2040, when it will safely pass our planet at a distance of about 670,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers, or about three times Earth’s). ). Distance to the Moon).