NASA Discovers Elongated Asteroid As Big As The Empire State Building
Almost everyone is familiar with the Empire State Building, a 102-story skyscraper gracing the skyline of Midtown Manhattan. But what if scientists discovered an object that large was hurtling through the vast emptiness of space?
That appears to be exactly what researchers at NASA recently concluded when an asteroid that zipped past Earth caught their attention. Dubbed ‘2011 AG5’, the oblong-shaped rock is said to be one of the most elongated asteroids ever observed by planetary radar.
To be comparable to the Empire State Building, it’s obvious this incredible space rock is huge, with scientists estimating it measures an estimated 1,600 by 500 feet. Thankfully, it whizzed past our planet 1.1 million miles away, so there was no cause for alarm.
An asteroid roughly the size of the Empire State Building! Scientists recently tracked one of the most elongated objects ever imaged by planetary radar and revealed its unique dimensions: 1,600 ft (500 meters) long and about 500 ft (150 meters) wide. https://t.co/DqhBSNTtzi pic.twitter.com/9x9gM7Qgpq
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) February 17, 2023
Through the Goldstone radar, astronomers observed that along with a large, broad concavity in one of the asteroid’s two hemispheres, the rock displayed darker and lighter regions through its surface area, which could point towards certain small-scale surface features.
Impressively, the team, which as per NDTV, began analyzing the rock over 12 years ago, even deduced that if the asteroid was viewed by the human eye, it would appear dark charcoal in color, with a slow rotation rate of approximately nine hours to make a full turn.
The next time 2011 AG5 makes an appearance near the Earth will be in 2040 when it could potentially pass at a distance of 670,000 miles. Till then, it’ll spend its time in space slowly rotating and orbiting the sun once every 621 days.
[via Mashable and NDTV, cover image via NASA/JPL-Caltech]
