[X] My Assistant

[Jyril]

arXiv.org preprint: Characterization of the near-Earth Asteroid 2002NY40

Using the Maui Space Surveillance System a group of astronomers has managed to image the near-Earth asteroid 2002 NY40. The adaptive optics images are stunning and certainly the best visible light images of an NEA ever taken.

[Toma B]

OK .... so where can I see those "best visible light images of an NEA ever taken".

[jamescanvin]

Figures are at the end of the preprint - see Figure 2, page 22.

[Jyril]

Yes, sorry about that.

Fraser Cain of the Universe Today has written a nice plain English news piece of the asteroid: The Triangle that Skimmed Past the Earth: Asteroid 2002 NY40

Getting these high resolution images of the asteroid was actually pretty difficult. At its very brightest, closest point, when Asteroid 2002 NY40 could be seen at the greatest resolution, it was moving very quickly across the sky - it covered the diameter of the Moon every 6 minutes, zipping across the sky at 65,000 km/hour. The background stars changed with every image. Instead of calibrating against a single set of background stars, the researchers had to calibrate each image against whatever images happened to be in the field of view at the time.

That's pretty fast!

[Jyril]

...the best visible light images...

Read: optical. They're of course in IR images.

[Toma B]

Wow! really great images.
I wonder what HST images of "2002NY40" would look like...guess I never know...

[edstrick]

Uh.. did anybody notice that that article nowhere mentions the diameter of this rocklet? <or did I miss that?>

[jamescanvin]

There is a 1km scale bar on the images - longest dimension is about 1km

[tedstryk]

During its close flyby, it was probably moving too fast for HST to track it well enough to do nearly as well - if you look at the ACS lunar shots, you see the same thing.

It is exciting to have these new views, in addition to the radar views we already had.

[Toma B]

...in addition to the radar views we already had.

Is that the same asteroid?

[djellison]

Yes - 2002NY40

[ugordan]

Sooo.... it's a shape-shifter? One minute it's a peanut, the next a triangle?

[tedstryk]

Sooo.... it's a shape-shifter? One minute it's a peanut, the next a triangle?

If you look at the first radar image (the small one), it matches up relatively well with the groud-based shape. I think the infrard people had the misfortune of catching it when one of the lobes was hidden.

[ugordan]

Didn't they in fact say they were lucky to catch the asteroid when it presented the largest side to us? Wouldn't that be some of the other radar views for example?

[tedstryk]

Those images were taken from Hawaii. There is a good chance that by that point it had dropped below the Horizon (or hills) at Arecibo. So it may be why Arecibo only got that angle from further out.