Realme X50 Pro 5G receives UI 2.0 based on Android 11
Using data collected at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF)
and orbit analysis from the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies
(CNEOS) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists have confirmed that
Near-Earth Object (NEO)
2020 SO is, in fact, a 1960's-Era Centaur rocket booster.
The object, discovered in September by astronomers searching for
near-Earth asteroids from
the NASA-funded Pan-STARRS1 survey telescope on Maui, garnered interest in the
planetary science community due to its size and unusual orbit and was studied
by observatories around the world, according to an official release.
Further analysis of 2020 SO's orbit revealed the object had come
close to Earth a few times over the decades, with one approach in 1966 bringing
it close enough to suggest it may have originated from Earth. Comparing this
data with the history of previous NASA missions, Paul
Chodas, CNEOS director, concluded 2020 SO could be the Centaur upper stage
rocket booster from NASA's ill-fated 1966 Surveyor 2 mission to the Moon.
Equipped with this knowledge, a team led by Vishnu Reddy, an
associate professor and planetary scientist at the Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory at the University of Arizona, performed follow-up spectroscopy
observations of 2020 SO using NASA's IRTF on Maunakea, Hawai'i.
"Due to extreme faintness of this object following CNEOS
prediction it was a challenging object to characterise" said Reddy.
"We got colour observations with the Large Binocular Telescope, or LBT,
that suggested 2020 SO was not an asteroid."
Comments
Post a Comment