Phoenix, Oct 16: An asteroid discovered by Arizona astronomers last month passed within 83,668 kilometers of Earth, the closest documented approach of an asteroid that didn't collide with the atmosphere. Close encounters with asteroids of its size, about 3 meters to 6 meters in diameter, are not unusual, astronomers believe, but catching images and documenting orbits of those asteroids are difficult.

"The coup is to actually see one of them ... So we had a bit of luck,'' said Edward Bowell, director of Lowell Observatory's near Earth object search program.
Images of sq222, as it's been dubbed, were captured by Lowell Observatory in flagstaff, Arizona, and documented by fountain hills-based nonprofit minor planet research.

Minor planet research was testing a computer and image system designed to allow students to look for asteroids and other space objects when a researcher spotted three small white lines, images of an object moving about twice the speed of the Moon.
The discovery was relayed back to Lowell and the minor planet center, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Smithsonian institution program, which asked other astronomers for help spotting the asteroid.


Using data from other observers and another sighting at Lowell, astronomers have been able to project the orbit of sq222 and calculate how close it passed to the earth, said Brian Marsden, director of the minor planet center.
Bureau Report