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The Miryang Arirang Space Observatory successfully photographed the asteroid 1994pc1 (7482).
Asteroid 1994pc1 (7482) was discovered at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia in 1994. It is an asteroid about 1 km wide and orbits the sun once every about 1 year and 7 months (572 days).
At 6:50 a.m. on the 19th, it was closest to Earth at a distance of 1.93 million km (about 5 times the distance of the moon), and at this time, the apparent magnitude was about 10 degrees, which was bright enough to be observed with an astronomical telescope on clear weather.
The Space Observatory succeeded in observing the asteroid ‘1994pc1’ following the successful observation of the James Webb Space Telescope on the 11th using the world’s first speech recognition telescope ‘Byul-i’.
The Space Observatory is the only astronomical observatory in Korea with special themes for extraterrestrial planets and extraterrestrial life.
Director Choi Chang-min and Park Jae-hyeon, who jointly participated in the observation, said, “This asteroid photography is meaningful because it was the first time we observed an asteroid inside the observatory.