China News Agency, Urumqi, March 7th (Reporter Sun Tingwen) The reporter learned from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the 7th that at the end of February this year, the 1-meter large field of view optical telescope (NOWT) at the Nanshan Station of the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered for the first time a near-Earth small planet.
Recently, the International Minor Planet Center issued a notice to confirm it, and awarded the provisional number 2023 DB2.
Near-Earth asteroids are a very special type of small celestial bodies in the solar system. The closest distance to the sun is no more than 1.3 astronomical units (about 200 million kilometers). Since they are likely to pass by the earth during their orbit, they are A class of small celestial bodies in the solar system that poses the greatest threat to the safety of the earth is also the focus of the development and utilization of small celestial body resources.
In addition, their discovery and observational studies help to understand the composition of the primitive solar system, the distribution of water in the solar system, and the dynamic evolution history of the solar system.
After follow-up observations by multiple devices around the world, it is confirmed that the absolute magnitude of 2023 DB2 is 21.76, corresponding to a diameter of about 200 meters, about the size of two football fields, and it takes 1.06 years to revolve around the sun, but its closest distance to the earth's orbit It is 30 million kilometers away, which is 80 times the distance between the earth and the moon, so it will not pose a threat to the earth.
It is reported that this discovery is the result of in-depth cooperation between the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory using NOWT and the Xingming amateur astronomical observation team.
NOWT has the advantages of a large field of view of 1.3 degrees, high pointing and tracking accuracy. Its main scientific research work is to carry out optical time-domain astronomical survey research. The time-series observation data obtained by it are especially suitable for discovering asteroids and transient celestial bodies through deep excavation.
From December 2022, the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory has launched an asteroid search project in cooperation with the Xingming amateur astronomical observation team, including in-depth excavation of NOWT scientific research observation data, and allocating part of NOWT observation time to the asteroid search project, and working together to improve NOWT Research output in this direction.
2023 DB2 is the near-Earth asteroid detected by members of the Xingming amateur astronomical observation team through real-time in-depth excavation of NOWT scientific research observation data.
So far, the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory has become the third unit of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to discover near-Earth asteroids after the National Astronomical Observatory and the Purple Mountain Observatory.
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