The giant asteroid that passed by Earth yesterday was found to have its own moon.
Images of the object were taken using the 230-foot-wide Deep Space Network antenna, which took 20 individual photographs that were transformed into a movie, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported.
The findings show the asteroid, dubbed 2004 BL86, is approximately 1,100 feet across and has a small moon approximately 230 feet across. Monday's flyby was the closest approach seen over the past two centuries, coming as close as within 745,000 miles of Earth. It was also the closest an asteroid of this size has been known to pass Earth until 1999 AN10 flies by in 2027.
"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," NASA reported.
In 2016, NASA plans to launch a robotic probe to one of the most potentially hazardous of the known NEOs. The OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid (101955) Bennu will help pave the way for future asteroid-based missions that could potentially help protect our planet.
In addition to identifying objects that could pose a threat to Earth, studying asteroids and comets could help scientists gain insights into the origins of our solar system as well as how water first appeared on Earth.
"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," they reported.
