Astronomer captures footage of 3,280ft asteroid as it nears Earth

An astronomer has captured footage of a huge asteroid 3,451 feet in diameter as it made its closest approach to Earth in almost 90 years.

Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) could be seen as a small white dot as it travelled towards our planet at around 19:00 GMT on Monday (January 17).

The following evening, at 21:51 GMT (16:51 EST) on January 18, the asteroid made its closest approach to Earth since 1933, coming within 1.2 million miles of our planet.

The clip was captured by Gianluca Masi, an astrophysicist and manager of the Virtual Telescope Project, provided by the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Italy.

Another eight so-called near-Earth objects (NEOs) are set to pass safely by Earth this month, according to NASA.

This image, a still from the footage, comes from a single, 60-second exposure, remotely taken with the 'Elena' robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope

The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid. This is why stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the centre of the image, marked by an arrow

ASTEROID 7482 (1994 PC1)

The space rock 7482 (1994 PC1) was first discovered in 1994.

It was spotted by RH McNaught using the Siding observatory in Australia.

It orbits the Sun every 572 days, although has an eccentric orbit taking it from 0.9 to 1.8 AU from the star.

One AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

The last known approach this close was in 1933, when it was 699,000 miles from the Earth.

'We captured several images of the potentially hazardous asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1 while safely approaching us,' said Masi.

'We made a still picture and nice animation. The image above comes from a single, 60-second exposure, remotely taken with the "Elena" robotic unit available at Virtual Telescope.

'The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the centre of the image, marked by an arrow.

'Using all the images of the sequence, we could make the animation below, showing 1994 PC1 in motion against the stars.'

NASA puts the diameter of asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) as 3,451 feet (1.052km), much larger than the tallest building on Earth, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which measures 2,722 feet.

Following its close approach on Tuesday, 7482 (1994 PC1) won't be this close to Earth again until the year 2105, according to NASA JPL-Caltech's Solar System Dynamics.

Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1), which orbits the sun every 1.5 years, was first discovered in 1994 by astronomer RH McNaught using the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia.

Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) was first discovered by Australian astronomers in 1994 and made a close approach of Earth this week

NASA puts the diameter of asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1) as 3,451 feet (1.052km), much larger than the tallest building on Earth

Its orbit is very well known, according to astronomers, and varies from 0.9 AU to 1.8 AU, where 1 AU is the distance between the Earth and the sun.

It is a common stony S-type asteroid, and every close approach gives astronomers the chance to study the surface and learn more about these ancient space rocks.

NASA and other agencies regularly track more than 28,000 known asteroids as they orbit the Sun, and occasionally cross Earth's orbit.

The massive asteroid, more than twice the size of the Empire State Building in New York, came within 1.2 million miles of the Earth

Sun (yellow) · Earth (blue) · 1994 PC1 (magenta)

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SPACE ROCKS

An asteroid is a large chunk of rock left over from collisions or the early Solar System. Most are located between Mars and Jupiter in the Main Belt.

A comet is a rock covered in ice, methane and other compounds. Their orbits take them much further out of the Solar System.

A meteor is what astronomers call a flash of light in the atmosphere when debris burns up.

This debris itself is known as a meteoroid. Most are so small they are vapourised in the atmosphere.

If any of this meteoroid makes it to Earth, it is called a meteorite.

Meteors, meteoroids and meteorites normally originate from asteroids and comets.

NASA says none of the known asteroids are expected to collide with the Earth at any point in the near future, but there are asteroids whose orbits aren't known.

Asteroids and other space objects are being monitored by NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies.

It defines 7482 (1994 PC1) as a near-Earth object (NEO) and a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA).

NEOs are an asteroid or comet whose orbit brings it into or through a zone between approximately 91 million and 121 million miles (195 million km) from the Sun, meaning that it can pass within about 30 million miles (50 million km) of Earth’s orbit.

If the object is larger than 460 feet (140 meters) across, it is considered a potentially hazardous object (PHO).

'NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighbourhood,' said NASA.

'Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer