Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (99942) Apophis: an image – 02 Mar. 2021

We captured (99942) Apophis again, while it is ready to come relatively close (15 millions of km) to us and we are ready to share it live with you. Here it is our image.

Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (99942) Apophis: 02 Mar. 2021.

Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (99942) Apophis: 02 Mar. 2021.

The image above comes from a single, 300-seconds exposure, remotely taken with the “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 short trails, while the asteroid looks like a bright and sharp dot of light in the center of the image, marked by an arrow.

Apophis” is, by far, the most famous potentially hazardous asteroid. Please check our previous post to learn more about it.

At the imaging time, (99942) Apophis was at 17 millions of km from the Earth. On 6 March 2021 it will be at its minimum distance from us, that is about 15 millions of km, quite a lot, so there are no risk at all for us.

The Virtual Telescope Project will show (99942) Apophis live, online, so you can spy it in real-time, from the comfort of your home.

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