Watch an Asteroid's Flyby of Earth, Live and from Space

Rocks zoom by the Earth pretty frequently. Sometimes they come so close they fall through the atmosphere, like the meteor that streaked through the skies of Chelyabinsk, Russia, this past February. Other times they pass our planet quietly and harmlessly by. That’s what asteroid 1998 QE2 is going to do this afternoon, but this pass is distinctive for another reason: the flyby will be broadcast live from the Slooh Space Camera.

As its name suggests, 1998 QE2 was discovered in 1998 (on August 19, to be exact); astronomers found it while working with MIT’s LINEAR (Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research) program in New Mexico. It’s a pretty big one, measuring about 1.7 miles across. And it’s already of interest to scientists. Astronomers have been tracking and observing the asteroid this week using the Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California. So far, radar images that typically shed light on an asteroid’s nature and orbit have revealed dark features on its surface indicative of large concavities.

But that’s not all. Radar images taken over a two hour period further revealed that the asteroid is actually part of a binary system. In orbit around this nearly two-mile wide rock is a smaller rock, a sort of “moon” about 2,000 feet across.

It’s neat, but not uncommon. It turns out that of space rocks at least 655 feet across, about 16 percent aren’t single rocks but binary or even triple systems.

During the pass – the asteroid will make its closest approach to the Earth at one minute before five this afternoon EDT – astronomers will watch the rock using the 230-foot-wide Deep Space Network antenna. After the pass, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico will continue to observe 1998 QE2 until June 9.

Luckily, this binary asteroid isn’t coming close enough to the Earth to threaten our livelihood. But it doesn’t change the fact that NASA is keeping a close watch on all things flying by out planets. The agency keeps a close watch on a lot of near-Earth objects that could potentially threaten life on this planet. It also studies asteroids. Among NASA’s future missions is OSIRIS-REx, a mission set to launch in 2016 and rendezvous with the asteroid 1999 RQ36 four years later in 2020.

The live broadcast of 1998 QE2‘s pass will start at 4:30 pm EDT. You can watch the flyby on Slooh.com or download the free Slooh app in the iTunes store. It promises to be a good show.