An asteroid that flew precariously close to Earth in early February has an extremely unusual shape and rotation for an object of its kind, new NASA research has shown.
Astronomers recently got an up-close look at a"potentially hazardous" asteroid as it whizzed safely past Earth, and what they saw caught them by surprise: The space rock is unusually elongated for an asteroid and is spinning much more slowly than expected.
On Feb. 3, 2023, the asteroid passed within about 1.1 million miles of Earth, or almost five times the distance between Earth and the moon. Its close flyby gave astronomers the chance to properly scan it for the first time. "Of the 1,040 near-Earth objects observed by planetary radar to date, this is one of the most elongated we’ve seen," Lance Benner , a principal scientist at JPL who helped lead the observations, said in the statement. Most of the scanned space rocks that have whizzed by Earth are much more rounded, he added.Related: Why are asteroids and comets such weird shapes?
The new images also showed subtle dark and lighter patches several feet across on the asteroid's surface, which may indicate that there are multiple small-scale surface features littered across the asteroid. But what they might be remains a mystery.
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