Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2019 LH5 close encounter: a image – 6 July 2023
Earlier this morning, the large (diameter between 210 and 470 meters) potentially hazardous asteroid 2019 LH5 had a relatively close and obviously safe encounter with the Earth. It came as close as 5.7 million of km, about 15 times the average lunar distance. We shared it live with our community to celebrate Asteroid Day 2023.
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2019 LH5: a image – 6 July 2023
The image above comes from a single 180-second exposure, remotely taken with the Celestron C14+Paramount ME+SBIG ST8-XME robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project. The telescope tracked the object, this is why it looks like a sharp dot of light, while stars on the background are leaving trails.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2019 LH5 was at about 5.7 million of km from the Earth, basically at its flyby with us. The asteroid was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Survey on 6 June 2019.
This 210m – 470m large asteroid reached its minimum distance (about 5.7 million of km, about 15 times the average lunar distance) from us on 7 July 2023, at 04:11 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there were no risks at all for our planet.
Below is the podcast from our live feed:
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