Holiday Asteroid Imaged with NASA Radar

The December 2018 close approach by the large, near-Earth asteroid 2003 SD220 has provided astronomers an outstanding opportunity to obtain detailed radar images of the surface and shape of the object and to improve the understanding of its orbit.

The asteroid will fly safely past Earth on Saturday, Dec. 22, at a distance of about 1.8 million miles (2.9 million kilometers). This will be the asteroid's closest approach in more than 400 years and the closest until 2070, when the asteroid will safely approach Earth slightly closer.

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Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSSR/NSF/GBO

These three radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2003 SD220 were obtained on Dec. 15-17, by coordinating observations with NASA's 230-foot (70-meter) antenna at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California and the National Science Foundation's (NSF) 330-foot (100-meter) Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.

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This animation represents a map of the increased count of all known asteroids in the solar system between Jan. 1, 1999, and Jan. 31, 2018.

Blue represents near-Earth asteroids.

Orange represents main-belt asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Dragon wrote:

This animation represents a map of the increased count of all known asteroids in the solar system between Jan. 1, 1999, and Jan. 31, 2018.

Blue represents near-Earth asteroids.

Orange represents main-belt asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

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Love how it resembles an eye