NASA Tracks Down 1600-Foot Oddly Shaped Asteroid As Big As Empire State Building

Scientists at NASA have tracked down an asteroid with dimensions similar to the Empire State Building. The asteroid had recently sped past Earth and it has caught the attention of astronomers for its elongated shape. The oddly shaped asteroid called 2011 AG5, was closely tracked by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

The object is 1600 feet long and about 500 feet wide- dimensions comparable to the Empire State Building. The powerful 230-foot (70-meter) Goldstone Solar System Radar antenna dish at the Deep Space Network's facility near Barstow, California, revealed the dimensions of this extremely elongated asteroid, a press release by NASA said.

"Of the 1,040 near-Earth objects observed by planetary radar to date, this is one of the most elongated we've seen," said Lance Benner, principal scientist at JPL who helped lead the observations.

The asteroid 2011 AG5 sped past Earth at a distance of 1.1 million miles away on February 3. The astronomers analysed its size, rotations, surface and silhouette in detail since the object was discovered 12 years ago.

The image shows a collage of six pictures taken by the Goldstone Solar System Radar antenna dish in California. The astronomers made a few observations: It is as dark as charcoal when viewed by the human eye, it appears to be scooped on one side and is spinning around every nine hours.

The Goldstone radar observations provide a key measurement of the asteroid's orbit around the Sun. Radar provides precise distance measurements that can help scientists at NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) refine the asteroid's orbital path. Asteroid 2011 AG5 orbits the Sun once every 621 days and won't have a very close encounter with Earth until 2040 when it will safely pass our planet at a distance of about 670,000 miles (1.1 million kilometres, or nearly three times the Earth-Moon distance).

"Interestingly, shortly after its discovery, 2011 AG5 became a poster-child asteroid when our analysis showed it had a small chance of a future impact," said Paul Chodas, the director for CNEOS at JPL. "Continued observations of this object ruled out any chance of impact, and these new ranging measurements by the planetary radar team will further refine exactly where it will be far into the future."

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