Near-Earth Asteroid 2022 NF extremely close encounter: a image – 6 July 2022
On 7 July 2022, the near-Earth asteroid 2022 NF will have an extremely close, but safe encounter with our Earth, coming as close as 90.000 km from its center. We shared it live while it was approaching us.
Near-Earth Asteroid 2022 NF: 6 July 2022.
The image above comes from a single, 300-second exposure, remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″ + Paramount ME + SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope. The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why stars look like long trails while the asteroid is a sharp dot of light. That image was collected while we were sharing the asteroid live with thousands of people connected. This event was part of our Asteroid Day 2022 celebration.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2022 NF was at about 640.000 km from the telescope and was quickly approaching our planet. The minimum distance (90.000 km, 23% of the average lunar distance) will be reached on 7 July at 13:45 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL).
This 5-12 meters large asteroid (source: Nasa/JPL) was discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey on 4 July 2022 and announced the following day. Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.
Below is the podcast from our live feed:
Support The Virtual Telescope Project!
Support us! Please, donate and receive unique, LIMITED EDITION set of images of the stunning comet 12P/Pons-Brooks with Andromeda Galaxy, of potentially hazardous asteroids, space stations and much more, specifically made for supporters like you!
(you can adjust the amount later)
