Creative Commons License Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Simultaneous observations of asteroid Toutatis from two observatories

On UT 2004 September 29, the asteroid (4179) Toutatis zipped through space past the Earth, at only about 5 times the distance of the Moon. Astronomers at two observatories in the southern hemisphere,

took pictures of the asteroid simultaneously. The asteroid was so close to the Earth that it left a trail in the images.

Note that the trail isn't in quite the same position in each image; this superposition of the two with false color-coding makes it even more clear.

You can read more about the observations and their interpretation in the ESO press release

Creative Commons License Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.