First Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Discovered by Pan-STARRS Telescope

Photo: Two images of 2010 ST3 (circled in green) taken by PS1 about 15 minutes apart on the night of September 16 show the asteroid moving against the background field of stars and galaxies. Each image is about 100 arc seconds across. (Credit: PS1SC)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2010) — The Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) PS1 telescope has discovered an asteroid that will come within 4 million miles of Earth in mid-October. The object is about 150 feet in diameter and was discovered in images acquired on September 16, when it was about 20 million miles away.

It is the first "potentially hazardous object" (PHO) to be discovered by the Pan-STARRS survey and has been given the designation "2010 ST3."

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