Asteroid 1998 QE2 Has a Moon
Posted on May 30, 2013
1998 QE2, a 1.7-mile-wide asteroid, will pass within 3.6 million miles of the Earth during its closest approach on May 31, 2013. You can see an image of the asteroid's orbit here. NASA has revealed that the asteroid has a small satellite, or moon. The moon is about 2,000 feet (600 meters) wide. It has an orbit period of under four hours.
Large asteroids with one or more moons are not uncommon. NASA says 16% of asteroids bigger than 655 feet (200 meters) or larger are binary or triple systems. The above images of 1988 QE2 were obtained when the asteroid was about 3.75 million miles (6 million kilometers) from Earth. You can see a larger version of the images here. The radar observations were led by scientist Marina Brozovic of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
