Astronomers observing strange visitors to our solar system expected the rare binary asteroid 1999 KW4 to fly close to Earth at a distance of about 5.2 million km late last month.
It was far enough away that the space rock had no way of posing a threat to our planet, but it was close enough for scientists to get a good look at the special visitor.
Asteroid 1999 KW4 is unlike many other space rocks that sweep past our planet on their way around the sun. Instead of one large object, 1999 KW4 is actually two separate ones; a large main cosmic body, which is about one and a half kilometers across, and a smaller 'asteroid moon' that orbits it.
A new ESO post reveals that the duo flew close enough to Earth to be captured by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) camera, and the image is sharp enough that we can actually see the two different objects that make up the binary asteroid.
Credit: ESO
The hazy image is an actual photograph taken by scientists, and the image on the right is an artistic interpretation of what an object might look like if we could see it perfectly clearly.
