6-Foot-Wide 'Bald' Asteroid Is Smallest Ever Studied

Space,com ^ | December 1, 2016 07:00am ET | Mike Wall

[BenLurkin]

Astronomers have set a new record, taking the measure of a tiny space rock just 6 feet wide.

The researchers used four different telescopes on Earth to study the near-Earth asteroid (NEA), which is called 2015 TC25, during a close flyby it made of the planet in October 2015.

"This is the first time we have optical, infrared and radar data on such a small asteroid, which is essentially a meteoroid," Vishnu Reddy, of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, said in a statement.

"You can think of it as a meteorite floating in space that hasn't hit the atmosphere and made it to the ground — yet," added Reddy, lead author of a new study published in The Astronomical Journal that reports the 2015 TC25 observations. (But the chances of the asteroid hitting Earth in the foreseeable future are small, he said.)

Reddy and his team found 2015 TC25 to be surprisingly bright, reflecting about 60 percent of the sunlight that hits it. The asteroid also rotates once every 2 minutes, making it one of the fastest-spinning NEAs ever observed, researchers said.

In addition, 2015 TC25 appears to be a chunk of solid rock, rather than a rubble pile like many bigger asteroids. The tiny asteroid also consists of essentially bare rock; it lacks the layer of dirt-like regolith that blankets its larger brethren.

The asteroid was discovered in October 2015, shortly before its Earth flyby, which brought the space rock within just 79,500 miles (128,000 kilometers) of the planet's surface....

2015 TC25 is a NEA that circles the sun once every 382 days. But Reddy and his team think a collision probably chipped the space rock off 44 Nysa, a 43-mile-wide (70 km) asteroid that resides in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.

[CivilWarBrewing]

6 foot wide bald asxxx....Did Hillary bend over or something? /s

[roadcat]

"You can think of it as a meteorite floating in space that hasn't hit the atmosphere and made it to the ground — yet," added Reddy

I thought it's a meteor in space. But not a meteorite unless it hits the ground. So I can't think of it as a meteorite, and neither should he.

[ClearCase_guy]

6 feet is not enough.

[dr_lew]

I thought it's a meteor in space.

That would be a meteoroid. The term "meteor" refers to the appearance or phenomenon as obsevered. The word itself refers originally to any atmospheric phenomenon, such as a cloud, or lightning.

The use of this general term for what we now think of as "meteors" has a similar history to the term UFO, which linguistically defers the question of identification, but in usage devolves to a particular conclusion.

[roadcat]

It’s still not a meteorite if it’s in space. Has to hit the ground.

[dr_lew]

METEOROID