NASA confirms that “asteroid” spotted above Earth was actually a rocket from the 1960s

NASA confirmed that an object identified by its asteroid-hunting facilities was actually something else.

The object, known as the 2020 SO, is actually a Centaur rocket from the 1960s, the space agency said.

It likely made its way into space with the 1966 Surveyor 2 mission – which was intended as the second lunar lander to arrive on the moon, but got lost on the way – and has continued to float ever since. Earlier this year, that long orbit brought it back to Earth, where it was discovered in September by astronomers looking for asteroids.

As scientists examined it, they found that its orbit would bring it close to Earth a few times over the decades. One of those close passes, in 1966, was so close that it seemed to suggest it might actually have started from Earth in the first place.

New research has seen scientists use NASA’s infrared telescope facility, or IRTF, which is based on Maunakea in Hawaii. Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona and his team conducted spectroscopic observations of the object in an attempt to understand what it could be made of and what it could be.

“Due to the extreme weakness of this object following the CNEOS prediction, it was a difficult object to characterize,” Professor Reddy said in a statement. “We got color observations with the Large Binocular Telescope, or LBT, which suggested that 2020 SO was not an asteroid.”

The team then compared the object to 301 stainless steel, which was used to build Centaur rockets in the 1960s. Unexpectedly, they found it was a little different, but they wondered if the difference could be a result of comparing steel from a lab to a sample that spent half a century floating in space.

“We knew that if we wanted to compare apples to apples, we would have to try to get spectral data from another Centaur rocket that had been in Earth orbit for many years and then see if it better matched the 2020 SO spectrum,” said Professor Reddy. .

“Because of the extreme speed at which Centaur repeaters in Earth orbit travel across the sky, we knew it would be extremely difficult to lock into IRTF long enough to get a solid and reliable data set.”

In December, however, they found themselves lucky: another rocket that left Earth in 1971 was observed in Earth’s orbit. They could then compare the 2020 SO readings and found that they were remarkably similar after all.

On Tuesday 2020 SO made its closest approach to Earth. It will remain within the gravitational pull of the Earth until March, when it escapes and falls back into a new orbit around the Sun.

NASA noted that being able to distinguish between natural and man-made objects will be critical as it continues its efforts to catalog objects close to Earth that could threaten our planet and as a variety of countries fill the space above our heads with anchor. the more you cast.