Asteroid 2016 VA had a close encounter with Earth as it passed through its shadow on Nov. 2. The asteroid was first spotted only a couple of hours before making this journey.
The space rock is believed to be 7 to 22 meters wide, and it was traveling at the speed of 77,000 kilometers per hour relative to the Earth. This type of flyby by newly discovered objects happen only a few times a year.
The asteroid was first spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey's Mt. Lemmon Observatory. The observation occurred 4:24 AM EDT, nearly 16 hours before the rock made its journey through earth's shadow. The Virtual Telescope Project recorded the space rocket's transit and showed it being eclipsed by Earth. The space rock was within 75,000 kilometers of Earth at 8:42 p.m. EDT on November 2nd.
It is believed that a large number of celestial bodies orbit the sun, close to Earth. However, scientists have identified only about 15,000 out of them. The special feature of this flyby was that the foreign object made its journey through Earth's shadow. The Virtual Telescope Project also stated that this is the first time for a complete asteroid eclipse to be recorded.
Gianluca Masi, an astronomer, explained that the recording is a 60 seconds-long exposure. It was captured remotely using 'Elena' at the Virtual Telescope Project. Elena is a PlaneWave 17" +Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E robotic unit. Since asteroid was moving fast, the stars were shown trailing. It is believed that 2012 XE54 and 2008 TC3 have also made journeys through the Earth's shadow.