Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2015 FP118 close encounter: an image (30 Aug. 2018)
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2015 FP118 will have a relatively close encounter with our planet next 3 Sept. 2018, coming at about 4.7 millions km from us, 12 times the average lunar distance. We imaged it and now are pleased to share with you.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2015 FP118: 30 Aug. 2018
The image above is a single 300-seconds exposure, remotely taken with “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why stars show as small trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the center of the image.
At the imaging time, the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) 2015 FP118 was at about 5.5 millions of km from the Earth and it was heading to the mentioned close approach.
This 370 – 820 meters large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (4.7 millions of km) from us on 3 Sept. 2018, at 10:09 UTC. Needless to say, there are no risks at all for our planet.
At Virtual Telescope we will show 2015 FP118 live, online, next 3 Sept. 2018.
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