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.
Back Up