Asteroid 2004 BL86 has its own moon

Mountain-sized asteroid that flew past the earth will be the closest known asteroid of this this huge size to pass near Earth until 2027, which also brought a surprise along with it.

Zee Media Bureau

Washington: Mountain-sized asteroid that flew past the earth will be the closest known asteroid of this huge size to pass near Earth until 2027, which also brought a surprise along with it. 

NASA has released a radar observation of the 325 meter-wide asteroid which indicates that it flew safely past Earth, showing that the asteroid has its own moon.

Asteroid 2004 BL86 was about 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Earth, or about three times as far away as the moon, Discovery News reported.

As the asteroid rotates through the 20 radar images, it appears to show some diversity in its landscape, according to reports. 

NASA has estimated that 16 percent of asteroids over 200 meters in diameter are a binary or have orbiting moons, so the data gathered from this encounter will better constrain this estimate and give us an insight to the binary nature of near-Earth asteroids.

(With Agency inputs)