[meteorite-list] Asteroid 2004 BL86 That Flew Past Earth Today Has Moon

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4459

Asteroid That Flew Past Earth Today Has Moon
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 26, 2015

[Animation]
This GIF shows asteroid 2004 BL86, which safely flew past Earth on Jan. 
26, 2015. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Scientists working with NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network 
antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images 
of asteroid 2004 BL86. The images show the asteroid, which made its closest 
approach today (Jan. 26, 2015) at 8:19 a.m. PST (11:19 a.m. EST) at a 
distance of about 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers, or 3.1 times 
the distance from Earth to the moon), has its own small moon.

The 20 individual images used in the movie were generated from data collected 
at Goldstone on Jan. 26, 2015. They show the primary body is approximately 
1,100 feet (325 meters) across and has a small moon approximately 230 
feet (70 meters) across. In the near-Earth population, about 16 percent 
of asteroids that are about 655 feet (200 meters) or larger are a binary 
(the primary asteroid with a smaller asteroid moon orbiting it) or even 
triple systems (two moons). The resolution on the radar images is 13 feet 
(4 meters) per pixel.

The trajectory of asteroid 2004 BL86 is well understood. Monday's flyby 
was the closest approach the asteroid will make to Earth for at least 
the next two centuries. It is also the closest a known asteroid this size 
will come to Earth until asteroid 1999 AN10 flies past our planet in 2027.

Asteroid 2004 BL86 was discovered on Jan. 30, 2004, by the Lincoln Near-Earth 
Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey in White Sands, New Mexico.

Radar is a powerful technique for studying an asteroid's size, shape, 
rotation state, surface features and surface roughness, and for improving 
the calculation of asteroid orbits. Radar measurements of asteroid distances 
and velocities often enable computation of asteroid orbits much further 
into the future than if radar observations weren't available.

NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home 
planet from them. In fact, the U.S. has the most robust and productive 
survey and detection program for discovering near-Earth objects (NEOs). 
To date, U.S. assets have discovered over 98 percent of the known NEOs.

In addition to the resources NASA puts into understanding asteroids, it 
also partners with other U.S. government agencies, university-based astronomers, 
and space science institutes across the country, often with grants, interagency 
transfers and other contracts from NASA, and also with international space 
agencies and institutions that are working to track and better understand 
these objects.

NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, manages 
and funds the search, study and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose 
orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. JPL manages the Near-Earth 
Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. 
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

In 2016, NASA will launch a robotic probe to one of the most potentially 
hazardous of the known NEOs. The OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid (101955) 
Bennu will be a pathfinder for future spacecraft designed to perform reconnaissance 
on any newly discovered threatening objects. Aside from monitoring potential 
threats, the study of asteroids and comets enables a valuable opportunity 
to learn more about the origins of our solar system, the source of water 
on Earth, and even the origin of organic molecules that led to the development 
of life.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will provide 
overall mission management, systems engineering, and safety and mission 
assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will 
build the spacecraft. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA's New Frontiers 
Program. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages 
New Frontiers for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

NASA also continues to advance the journey to Mars through progress on 
the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which will test a number of new capabilities 
needed for future human expeditions to deep space, including to Mars. 
This includes advanced Solar Electric Propulsion -- an efficient way to 
move heavy cargo using solar power, which could help pre-position cargo 
for future human missions to the Red Planet. As part of ARM, a robotic 
spacecraft will rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid and redirect an 
asteroid mass to a stable orbit around the moon. Astronauts will explore 
the asteroid mass in the 2020's, helping test modern spaceflight capabilities 
like new spacesuits and sample return techniques. Astronauts at NASA's 
Johnson Space Center in Houston have already begun to practice the capabilities 
needed for the mission.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is available at:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

and via Twitter at

http://www.twitter.com/asteroidwatch

More information about asteroid radar research is at:

http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/

More information about the Deep Space Network is at:

http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn

For more information about the OSIRIS-REx mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex

http://osiris-rex.lpl.arizona.edu


Media Contact

DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle at jpl.nasa.gov