Earth-crossing asteroid 2001 ME1

On June 25, 2001, I was trying to followup on our discovery 2001 KL42, when this bright object went streaking through our image. It turned out to be earth-crossing asteroid 2001 ME1 making a close pass by earth. When we happened across it by accident, it had only been discovered 5 days before!

The field of view spans a third of a degree. The starting and ending images are 25 minutes apart, and each individual image is 30 seconds long. The bright object in upper right corner of the first frame is a bad spot in our camera's CCD chip.

2001ME1

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