PARIS: NASA has captured images of a peanut-shaped asteroid as it made its closest approach to Earth last weekend.About 4.6 million miles from Earth, a “contact binary” asteroid is in orbit around the sun. The asteroid 1999 JD6 has two “lobes” that are separate objects gravitationally bound. The Deep Space Network and the Green Bank Telescope were able to capture this image, bouncing radar off the objects to obtain a series of images showing the dance of the lobes.
A handful of contact binaries are known, while there are a few other candidates, including Comet 67P / Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Due to its unusual shape, researchers have nicknamed 1999 JD6 a “space peanut.” The object is about 1.2 miles long, making it fairly large for a near-Earth asteroid.
In reality, the space peanut doesn’t move this fast. The image you’re seeing here is a time lapse that compresses a period of seven and a half hours.
