Discovered by NEOWISE Discovery date December 29, 2013 Aphelion 4.0446 AU (605.06 Gm) Orbital period 1,158 days Inclination 0.81665° Mean anomaly 208.52° | Discovery site NEOWISE Minor planet category Apollo, NEO, PHA Semi-major axis 2.4033 AU (359.53 Gm) Discovered 29 December 2013 Argument of perihelion 83.352° Asteroid group Apollo asteroid | |
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Similar 2013 TV135, 2012 YQ1, Nova Centauri 2013, 2008 KV42, (86039) 1999 NC43 | ||
2013 YP139 is an Apollo near-Earth asteroid discovered at a distance of 0.235 astronomical units from Earth. by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. The asteroid is estimated to be 0.650 kilometers (0.404 miles) in diameter, 43 million kilometers (27 million miles) away, and is expected to come within 490,000 kilometers (300,000 miles) of Earth, though not within one hundred years of its discovery in 2013. 2013 YP139 is the first asteroid to be discovered by the reinstated NEOWISE program of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, following the program's hibernation in 2011.
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Asteroid 2013 yp139 nasa spots new hazardous asteroid heading for earth jan 11 2014
Description
2013 YP139 is very dark, with an albedo comparable to a piece of coal. It orbits the Sun in an elliptical orbit along the invariable plane and is currently 42 million kilometers (27 million miles) away and is expected to come within 490,000 kilometers (300,000 miles) of Earth, slightly beyond the orbit of the Moon. Due to this close proximity, NASA has classified 2013 YP139 as a potential threat. At the time of discovery, 2013 YP139 was moving at a rate of 3.2° per day (for comparison the apparent diameter of the Moon is 0.5°).
Discovery
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer's Near-Earth Object WISE (NEOWISE) program was put into hibernation on February 1, 2011, following several program extensions, from which approximately 34,000 asteroids were detected. On August 21, 2013, however, the program was reactivated. The new mission of the NEOWISE was to identify the population of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects. 2013 YP139 was discovered on December 29, 2013, marking the first object detected since the program's reinstatement. The infrared brightness was the primary attribute used for ascertaining the approximate size of the asteroid. Over the course of half a day, the trajectory of the asteroid was observed against the stationary positioning of the stars in the background.
The data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer was transmitted to the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology, located in Pasadena, California. To confirm the discovery, researchers at the University of Arizona utilized the Spacewatch telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. 2013 YP139 is considered by NASA to be the first in what is expected to be thousands of objects to be detected by NEOWISE's new mission. Due to the trajectory of the asteroid, which puts it within a potentially dangerous range in over one hundred years following its discovery, NASA stated that they would keep a watchful eye on it.