China News Network, Nanjing, March 24th (Reporter Zhu Xiaoying) The International Asteroid Early Warning Network (IAWN) and the International Asteroid Center (MPC) released that the Near-Earth Asteroid 2020 FL2 discovered by the Zijinshan Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was in Beijing 2020 3 At 04:38:24 on the 23rd of the month, it flew across the earth at a distance of 0.38 months (about 144,000 kilometers).
2020 FL2 has an absolute magnitude of 26.3 and a size of about 20 meters. It is the smallest near-Earth asteroid found by the Near-Earth Astronomical Telescope. Its orbital intersection distance with the earth is 0.00095AU (about 142,500 kilometers), and it is also the nearest near-earth asteroid discovered by the Near-Earth Astronomical Telescope.
2020 FL2 flies across the earth (blue dot: earth; green dot: 2020 FL2; white dot: moon). Photo courtesy of Purple Mountain Observatory
2020 FL2 is a newly discovered asteroid at the Zijinshan Observatory's NEO telescope at 23:31:46 on March 19, 2020, Beijing time. At the time of discovery, the target had a brightness of 20 degrees and its apparent speed of movement was 0.4 degrees / day. Although the probability that the target was calculated to be a near-earth asteroid at the time of discovery was not high, researchers still immediately shared the target data with MPC for subsequent observations.
On the evening of March 21, when the Japan NASA observation station (Q66, located at the Australian Saiding Spring Observatory) observed the target again at 13:21:17 (UT, Universal Time), its apparent motion speed had It rapidly increased to 2.8 degrees / day, and the brightness also increased to 18.2, indicating that the target may be a near-earth asteroid.
As of the evening of March 22, a total of 15 observation stations have been observed internationally. Orbital calculations show that the 2020 FL2 semi-long diameter a is 1.32 astronomical units, the eccentricity e is 0.61, and the near-day distance q is 0.52 astronomical units. A typical Apollo near-Earth asteroid, and is forecast to fly at a distance of 144,000 kilometers from Earth at 04:38:24 on the 23rd Beijing time.
This research work was supported by funding from the Astronomy and Finance Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Pilot B Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Key Laboratory of Planetary Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. (Finish)