News item All news
Successful observing slot with the OGS telescope
operator neo image

operator neo

During the last observing run with the ESA 1-m telesope on Tenerife (the OGS = Optical Ground Station) the SSA-NEO programme successfully recovered three 'lost' NEOs. In addition, one new NEO was discovered. The new object has the designation 2013 AS76:

http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K13/K13B02.html

From the brightness of the object the size can be estimated to be around 40 - 100 m. With a minimum flyby distance to the Earth of just above 0.05 AU or 7.5 Million km it just falls outside the definition of a 'Potentially Hazardous Object'. Thus it will not pose any threat to our planet in the near future.

Three so-called NEO candidates observed with the OGS are still on the NEO Confirmation Page of the Minor Planet Center (http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/iau/NEO/toconfirm_tabular.html).

This discovery was possible because of the dedication and support of the TOTAS team (http://vmo.estec.esa.int/totas). The lucky person who first saw this object was amateur astronomer Gerhard Lehmann.