NASA Tracks Down 1600-Foot Oddly Shaped Asteroid As Big As Empire State Building
NDTV
The object is 1600 feet long and about 500 feet wide- dimensions comparable to the Empire State Building.
Scientists at NASA have tracked down an asteroid with dimensions similar to the Empire State Building. The asteroid had recently sped past Earth and it has caught the attention of astronomers for its elongated shape. The oddly shaped asteroid called 2011 AG5, was closely tracked by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The object is 1600 feet long and about 500 feet wide- dimensions comparable to the Empire State Building. The powerful 230-foot (70-meter) Goldstone Solar System Radar antenna dish at the Deep Space Network's facility near Barstow, California, revealed the dimensions of this extremely elongated asteroid, a press release by NASA said.
"Of the 1,040 near-Earth objects observed by planetary radar to date, this is one of the most elongated we've seen," said Lance Benner, principal scientist at JPL who helped lead the observations.
The asteroid 2011 AG5 sped past Earth at a distance of 1.1 million miles away on February 3. The astronomers analysed its size, rotations, surface and silhouette in detail since the object was discovered 12 years ago.
