January 27, 2015 Update:

The Goldstone scientists observing 2004 BL86 are part of a team of astronomers from around the world who have been characterizing the asteroid. Spectroscopic observations of 2004 BL86 made by Vishnu Reddy, a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, indicate the asteroid's spectral signature is similar to that of massive asteroid Vesta. Located in the heart of the solar system's main asteroid belt, asteroid Vesta was the recent destination of NASA's Dawn mission, which is now on its way to the icy world Ceres.

Scientists working with NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of asteroid 2004 BL86. The images show the asteroid, which made its closest approach on Jan. 26, 2015 at 8:19 a.m. PST (11:19 a.m. EST) at a distance of about 745,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers, or 3.1 times the distance from Earth to the moon), has its own small moon.

The 20 individual images used in the movie were generated from data collected at Goldstone on Jan. 26, 2015. They show the primary body is approximately 1,100 feet (325 meters) across and has a small moon approximately 230 feet (70 meters) across. In the near-Earth population, about 16 percent of asteroids that are about 655 feet (200 meters) or larger are a binary (the primary asteroid with a smaller asteroid moon orbiting it) or even triple systems (two moons). The resolution on the radar images is 13 feet (4 meters) per pixel.

The trajectory of asteroid 2004 BL86 is well understood. Monday's flyby was the closest approach the asteroid will make to Earth for at least the next two centuries. It is also the closest a known asteroid this size will come to Earth until asteroid 1999 AN10 flies past our planet in 2027.

Asteroid 2004 BL86 was discovered on Jan. 30, 2004, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey in White Sands, New Mexico. Lightcurve observations made during the days leading up to asteroid's flyby by Joseph Pollock of Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina; Petr Pravec of the Ondrejov Observatory, Czech Republic; and Julian Oey of the Blue Mountains Observatory, Leura, Australia indicated the asteroid was a binary.

Radar is a powerful technique for studying an asteroid's size, shape, rotation state, surface features and surface roughness, and for improving the calculation of asteroid orbits. Radar measurements of asteroid distances and velocities often enable computation of asteroid orbits much further into the future than if radar observations weren't available.

NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. In fact, the U.S. has the most robust and productive survey and detection program for discovering near-Earth objects (NEOs). To date, U.S. assets have discovered over 98 percent of the known NEOs.

In addition to the resources NASA puts into understanding asteroids, it also partners with other U.S. government agencies, university-based astronomers, and space science institutes across the country, often with grants, interagency transfers and other contracts from NASA, and also with international space agencies and institutions that are working to track and better understand these objects.

NASA's Near-Earth Object Program at NASA Headquarters, Washington, manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of asteroids and comets whose orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is available at:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

and via Twitter at

http://www.twitter.com/asteroidwatch

More information about asteroid radar research is at:

http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/

More information about the Deep Space Network is at:

http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn

News Media Contact

DC AgleJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-9011agle@jpl.nasa.gov2015-033