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A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket and not an asteroid, after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday.
Observations from a telescope in Hawaii confirmed his identity, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The object was classified as an asteroid after its discovery in September. But NASA’s leading asteroid expert, Paul Chodas, quickly suspected it was the upper stage of Surveyor 2’s Centaur rocket, a failed 1966 moon landing mission. Size estimates had placed it in the old Centaur range, which was about 32 feet long and 10 feet in diameter.
Chodas was demonstrated soon after a team led by Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona used an infrared telescope in Hawaii to observe not only the mysterious object but also a 1971 centaur orbiting Earth. The image data matched.
“Today’s news was super rewarding!” Chodas said by email. “It was teamwork that ended this puzzle.”
The object formally known as 2020 SO entered a large, unbalanced orbit around Earth last month and made its closest approach on Tuesday at just over 31,000 miles from Earth. It will depart from the neighborhood in March, resuming its orbit around the sun.
His next return is expected in 2036.
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