NASA's JPL Observed and Photographed Asteroids 2024 MK and 2011 UL21

TapTechNews July 10th news, on July 3rd, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA released a blog post stating that with the help of the Goldstone Planetary Radar of The Deep Space Network, it observed and photographed asteroid 2024 MK and 2011 UL21.

Asteroid 2011 UL21 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in October 17, 2011. The diameter of the main asteroid is about 1.5 kilometers and it has a satellite of its own.

Asteroid 2011 UL21 flew past the Earth on June 27th, with the shortest distance being approximately 6.6 million kilometers, which is 17 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. This is the first time this asteroid has flown past the Earth.

This nearly one-mile-wide (1.5 kilometers wide) celestial body is classified as a potentially hazardous object, but calculations of its future orbit show that it will not pose a threat to our planet in the foreseeable future.

The Goldstone Planetary Radar also observed and photographed another asteroid, 2024 MK, on June 29th. This asteroid has a width of 152.4 meters and a flyby distance of 184,000 miles (TapTechNews note: approximately 296,119.39 kilometers), which is 75% of the distance between the Earth and the Moon.