2005 YU55 animation

Asteroid 2005 YU55 passed the Earth on the night of the 8/9th. Astronomer BJ Fulton used an LCOGT telescope in California to make an animation of the 400 metre diameter asteroid over the hours as it went by. The fly-by is compressed into less than 30 seconds for this animation.

The asteroid has also been observed by ESA's Herschel Space Observatory even though it was moving pretty fast through the field of view. They haven't released the data yet but I'm sure they will in due course.

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Posted in astro blog by Stuart on Friday 11th Nov 2011 (10:51 GMT) | 4 Comments | Permalink

Comments: 2005 YU55 animation

Why does it look like a dot? Doesn't it have a tail. I'm amazed to see the video.

Posted by Get thin on Wednesday 16th Nov 2011 (19:38 UTC)

gravatarGet thin, it looks like a dot because it is only 400 metres across but around 300,000 kilometres away. That makes it appear far too small to resolve detail in images taken with optical telescopes.

2005 YU55 is an asteroid so it doesn't have a tail. Comets have tails.

Posted by Stuart on Wednesday 16th Nov 2011 (20:27 UTC)

This is amazing.Haven't seen a real video of an asteroid before.

Posted by Amy on Sunday 20th Nov 2011 (06:20 UTC)

go to the universe blog

http://tracinguniverse.blogspot.com/

Posted by david on Wednesday 11th Jan 2012 (09:07 UTC)

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