This may not take too much in this image, but it is an asteroid that has a major news effect in 2025. This is because this space rock, nominated asteroid 2024 YRR4, in 2032 has a 1 -in -48 chance to influence the Earth.
For obvious reasons, astronomers are desperate to learn as much as they can approximately 2024 YR4, the estimated 177 feet wide (54 m wide) is as larger. It is wide as the palace of Cinderella in Walt Disney World Florida.
The image painted here was captured by 8.1-meter Mithun South Telescope on February 7, 2025 which is located on a mountain sero Pachon in the Chile Andes. At the time when the image was taken, the asteroid was about 37 million miles (59.5 million kilometers) from Earth and 130 million miles (209 million kilometers) from the Sun.
“I think 2024 YT4 is very exciting!” Bryas Bolin, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center astronomers who helped capturing the image, told Space.com. “For the scientific ability to study such a small asteroid not only because of its infamous but in high expansion.
“In this way only a few asteroids have been studied.”
“We took a 12 200-second long exposure in the red band and tracked the asteroid speed to achieve these images,” Bolin explained. “The observation were difficult for three reasons. First, the asteroid was unconscious, requiring the use of large telescopes to see.”
Bolin explained the second difficulty that the fact surrounded the fact that 2024 YR4 was observed when the moon was illuminated 70%, which means that the sky background light increased significantly compared to specific dark -colored conditions. It made it more challenging to detect such an unconscious and distant object.
Finally, Bolin stated that the asteroid was transferring 0.26 arcsconds per minute, which required careful trekking with Gemini South to avoid damage.
This asteroid is not the first image of 2024 YT4. The asteroid was first discovered by the Final Terminal-Embarrassment System (ATLAS) on 27 December 2024, NASA-funded asteroid.
Immediately after its discovery, the Earth Objects Studies (CNEOS) near the asteroid NASA went to the top of the orange effect risk table. The asteroid has been built since the possibility of effect in seven years of climbing.
Esteroid Hunter David Rankin has been tracking 2024 YT4 since his discovery. He recently assured the readers of Space.com, convinced that the impact obstacles were expected to increase. Rankin said that those obstacles are also expected to fall soon when the orbit of this asteroid is better understood.
The pipeline has more Gemini South Pictures of 2024 YT4, but as the asteroid is currently moving away from the Earth, it can be until we get a really good look on this space rock – at least from the ground .
Bolin said that 2024 YT4 will fade by mid -March, which will make it difficult to find out from the ground. The asteroid will appear for the ground telescopes in the middle of 2028 as it re -receives the Earth.
“Therefore, this is the last chance that we have to inspect the asteroid from Gemini before 2028,” Bolin concluded.
Space-based telescopes may have a slightly greater luck to track this space rock until then. James Web Space Telescope (JWST) is ready to join this discovery in this year’s March.
