Madrid /
The universe has millions of secrets for us that astronomers are deciphering little by little. Now the Subaru telescope has captured images of the 1998 KY26 asteroid from its location in Hawaii, which will approach Earth at the end of 2020 and is the target of the expanded mission of the Japanese space agency Hayabusa2.
Operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Hayabusa2 asteroid explorer delivered a reentry capsule to Earth containing samples from the asteroid (162173) Ryugu on December 6.
After this descent, Hayabusa2 took off again, this time for the extended mission with the remaining fuel. In this expanded mission, Hayabsa2 must zoom in and observe its next target, the small asteroid 1998 KY26, the NAOJ (National Astronomical Observatories of Japan) reported in a statement.
The asteroid will approach Earth in the coming days
This asteroid is expected to approach 0.47 AU from Earth by mid to late December 2020, giving us a unique opportunity that occurs only once every three and a half years.
However, the diameter of 1998 KY26 is estimated to be no more than 30 meters, which is why its brightness is so dim that observations from the asteroid’s ground are difficult without a very large telescope.
1998 KY26 was photographed towards the constellation Gemini as a point of light of magnitude 25.4 with a measurement uncertainty of 0.7 mag.
The position data collected during these observations will be used to improve the accuracy of the asteroid’s orbital elements. Similar observations were made with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT).
LNB