The Arecibo Observatory , a vast radio telescope built within of a Puerto Rican sinkhole , is best known for its efforts to search for radiosignals from aliens .
But it ’s also a potent radiolocation place that can ping pass on objects in outer space and film the echoes .
Arecibo started doing just that on Sunday , capturing incredible new movie of a fast - moving asteroid dubbed 2015 BN509 .
The orbital diagram of near-Earth asteroid 2015 BN509.NASA/JPL-Caltech
What the images show is kind of adorable : a outer space stone that see like a gargantuan peanut vine .
Just face at it tumble through the void in this animated GIF :
Here ’s a closer look at the rotating asteroid that Arecibo scientists memorialize :
But do n’t let this cunning - looking space rock fool you .
It ’s not only respectably large , at about 200 meters ( 660 substructure ) all-inclusive by 400 m ( 1,310 feet ) long — taller than the Empire State Building in New York — but NASA has also view as it " potentially hazardous , " mean its orbit through space might one day direct it to smash up into Earth .
Ed Rivera - Valentín , a planetary scientist with the Universities Space Research Association who hit the books Arecibo data , told Business Insider in an e-mail that asteroid 2015 BN509 fly by Earth ahead of time this week at a speed of about 70,500 klick per hour ( 44,000 mph ) .
" The ' peanut ' shape comes from the fact that it is a link binary , " Rivera - Valentín said , " where the two parts [ of asteroids ] could not successfully orb each other and fall back together . "
He total that contact binaries ( or peanut - work asteroids , if you favour ) are actually pretty common — about one in every six distance rocks is categorize as such .
What ’s less typical about 2015 BN509 , which astronomers discover 2005 , is how close-fitting it likes to swing to Earth . The target just zoomed near our planet at an uncomfortably close compass of about 14 metre the space between Earth and the moon :
The orbital diagram of near - Earth asteroid 2015 BN509.NASA / JPL - Caltech
Rivera - Valentín said it ’s vital to make moving-picture show of such nigh - Earth objects ( NEOs ) as they coast through our neighborhood , since there ’s always a good grade of doubtfulness about their next paths , at least after optical telescopes first make out them .
" Arecibo run beyond acting as a fortune storyteller , we can characterize these objects , " he said . " We can read their size , shape , spin land , composition , and near - surface geology . "
The ultimate goal is to eat such datum into advance simulation and reckon just how big of a menace a fussy hazardous space rock-and-roll affectation to humans .
" An asteroid impact , unlike other natural catastrophes , can in reality be avoided . The information from Arecibo can be used by NASA to inform a world defending team mission , " he said , noting Arecibo ’s observation of 2015 BN509 will continue through February 10 .
A " planetary vindication " mission may fathom like the plot of a science fiction blockbuster , but NASA is devilishly serious about tracking and preparing for killer asteroid . The space means even has a authorisation from Congress to discover 90 % of an estimated 300,000 NEOs big enough to wipe a prominent city off the map .
infinite rocks that are capable of such desolation pass by us withworrisomefrequency . In fact , the typical American is about 30 meter more likely to cash in one’s chips from a regional asteroid smasher during their lifetimesthan a refugee terrorist attack , fit in to a recent information analysis by Business Insider .
However , NASA recently and for a third timeturned downNEOCam — a muscular asteroid - hunt down blank telescope — that couldhelp get the job done .
In an e-mail to Business Insider , NASA officials pronounce they intend to fund the NEOCam military mission , though only partly through 2017 — presumptively long enough to track down full funding for the mission , and a rocket salad on which to launch it .
" The NEOCAM projection is working to place activities that could be done this year that would reduce the technical , docket , and cost hazard of a future mission , " said David Schurr , the deputy director of NASA ’s worldwide scientific discipline programme .
Read the original clause onTech Insider . right of first publication 2017 .
Watch next : A NASA scientist say we ’re deplorably unprepared for a jumbo asteroid strike — here ’s why nuke one would n’t solve
