!An asteroid moves strangely next to Earth... and scientists are at a loss
New research by “NASA” showed that the asteroid, which passed unstable near Earth in early February, has an unusual shape and rotation, which confused scientists, according to what was reported by the scientific magazine “livescience”.
Scientists had predicted that the asteroid's orbit around the sun, which takes about 621 days, could put it on a devastating collision course with Earth in 2040, but follow-up observations in 2012 revealed that its orbit was a major miscalculation and that it posed no real threat to our planet.
The asteroid anomaly, known as 2011 AG5, was discovered in January 2011 and passed within 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) of Earth in February 2023. Its close flyby gave astronomers a chance to scan it properly for the first time. , using the powerful 230-foot (70-meter) wide Goldstone radar at NASA's Space Network facility in Southern California.
The mysterious images taken by the researchers revealed that the asteroid “2011 AG5” is 1,600 feet (500 meters) long and about 500 feet (150 meters) wide, the size of the Empire State Building in New York.
Radar scans also enabled researchers to calculate the asteroid's rotation, and reported that it takes about 9 hours for the rectangular body to complete one rotation. This is a much longer rotation period than most asteroids.
The new images also showed darker and lighter spots several feet across on the asteroid's surface, which may indicate the presence of many small-scale surface features scattered across the asteroid. But what it might be is still a mystery, according to the scientific journal.
Source: websites