Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (467336) 2002 LT38 close encounter: a image – 23 June 2023
Next 24 June 2023, the large (diameter between 200 and 450 meters) potentially hazardous asteroid (488453) 1994 XD will have a relatively close and obviously safe encounter with the Earth. It will come as close as 6.6 million of km, about 17 times the average lunar distance. Here it is our image.
The image above comes from a single 60-second exposure, remotely taken with the Celestron C14+Paramount ME+SBIG ST8-XME robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project.
At the imaging time, asteroid (488455) 1994 XD was at about 6,7 millions of km from the Earth and it was still approaching us. The asteroid was discovered by the LINEAR survey on 12 June 2002.
This 200m – 450m large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (about 6.6 millions of km, about 17 times the average lunar distance) from us on 24 June 2023, at 18:28 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.
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