India’s first fully robotic telescope captures ‘building-sized’ asteroid zipping past Earth

The images were captured by the country’s first fully robotic optical research telescope located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory in Hanle, Ladakh.

Astrophysicist Varun Bhalerao, associated with IIT Bombay’s STAR lab, shared an image of the asteroid on social media, showcasing its rapid movement that made stars in the background look like flecks.

Last night, the GROWTH-India Telescope caught this 116m, building-sized asteroid on its closest approach to earth! We tracked the rapid motion of the asteroid as it zipped across the sky at just 10x lunar distance. The rapid motion makes background stars look like streaks. pic.twitter.com/gbbT8yxqsP

— Varun Bhalerao (@starlabiitb) July 26, 2024

Despite being classified as an Apollo-class asteroid because its orbit intersects with Earth’s path, it does not qualify as a ‘Potentially Hazardous Asteroid’.

GROWTH-India’s primary mission is to observe celestial phenomena, including Near Earth Asteroids, which may pose potential threats to Earth.

Asteroids, remnants from the early solar system, offer valuable scientific insights into the conditions that existed billions of years ago.