Nanjing’s Purple Mountain Observatory has discovered a football field-sized asteroid that came as close as 144,000 kilometres to the Earth last weekend. The asteroid swept the world by at 4:38:24 am on 23 March, Beijing time.
The Near Earth Object (NEO), named 2020 FL2, was first spotted by the Xuyi Observation Station on Purple Mountain on 19 March, some 4 days before its closest encounter with Earth.
2020 FL2 is 15 to 33 metres in diameter, with an absolute magnitude of 26.3.
Purple Mountain Observatory researcher, Zhao Haibin, revealed that 2020 FL2 is the smallest and closest asteroid ever found by China, reported The Paper yesterday.
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The asteroid’s proximity to Earth got Cnet remarking that 2020 FL2 was ignoring social distancing norms. The tech website said, “The threshold at which a large asteroid comes close enough to earn the label ‘potentially hazardous’ and warrant monitoring by astronomers is about 4.5 million miles (7.2 million kilometres).
“2020 FL2’s close flyby is kind of like the solar system equivalent of tying a bunch of boats together for a spring break party during a time when everyone with a brain is calling for social distancing to stop the spread of a pandemic.”
For comparison, the size of 2020 FL2 is on a par with the 2013 asteroid that was caught by vehicles’ dash cams exploding in the sky over Russia and shattering thousands of windows.
A total of 22 NEOs within 1 lunar distance (384,000 kilometres) have been detected in 2020 to date. The largest of these is 2020 FD2, detected on 18 March that is 20 to 44 metres in diameter.
The relatively large number of discoveries to date this year has been made possible by more efficient data processing methods, together with good night-time observation conditions. The latter is the result of less pollution on account of the Covid-19 outbreak.
The 1.2 metre Near Earth Object Telescopic Finder at the Xuyi Observation Station on Purple Mountain is one of two CNSA (Chinese National Space Administration) facilities participating in the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN). The other is the 1.2 metre wide-field photoelectric telescope at the Jilin Observation Station. China has been a participant in the IAWN since January of 2018.
