* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Asteroid 2008 HJ

Blobrana · L

A British amateur astronomer has discovered the fastest rotating natural object known in our Solar System, using data from FT South.
His observations, made using a telescope normally shared by school students and professional scientists as part of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGTN), have proved that the newly-discovered asteroid, 2008 HJ is revolving once every 42.7 seconds, classifying it is as a superfast rotator. His discovery will boost our sparse knowledge of near Earth asteroids and is another successful find for the Faulkes Telescope near-Earth asteroid project.

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Blobrana · L

Asteroid 2008 HJ was discovered on 24th April by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR), five days before it passed within 1.1 million km (less than 3 lunar distances) of the Earth on 29th April, 18:00 UT.
The 12 x 24 metre Apollo asteroid has been measured to have one of the fastest rotations, with a 42.67 ± 0.04 seconds rotation.

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-- Edited by Blobrana at 22:34, 2008-05-22