India's Fully Robotic Telescope In Ladakh Captures Building-Sized Asteroid's Closest Approach To Earth

The GROWTH-India telescope at the Indian Astronomical Observatory in Ladakh recently captured a building-sized asteroid on its approach to Earth. Taking to X (formerly Twitter) Varun Bhalerao, Astrophysicist at the Space Technology and Astrophysics Research (STAR) lab at IIT Bombay, shared the image of the asteroid. He said that the telescope tracked the asteroid's rapid movement, making the background stars look like streaks of light. 

"Last night, the GROWTH-India Telescope caught this 116m, building-sized asteroid on its closest approach to Earth! We tracked the rapid motion of the asteroid as it zipped across the sky at just 10x lunar distance. The rapid motion makes background stars look like streaks," Mr Bhalerao wrote in the caption of the post. 

Take a look below: 

Last night, the GROWTH-India Telescope caught this 116m, building-sized asteroid on its closest approach to earth! We tracked the rapid motion of the asteroid as it zipped across the sky at just 10x lunar distance. The rapid motion makes background stars look like streaks. pic.twitter.com/gbbT8yxqsP

— Varun Bhalerao (@starlabiitb) July 26, 2024

Since being shared, Mr Bhalerao's post has accumulated nearly 3,000 views and several comments. "Nice shot," wrote one user. "Super India," commented another. 

Notably, the GROWTH-India Telescope is India's first fully robotic optical research telescope. It is a collaboration between the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, and IIT Bombay. According to its site, the primary research focus of this telescope is time-domain astronomy: the study of explosive transients and variable sources in the universe. 

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The GROWTH-India telescope has a 0.7 x 0.7 degrees field of view and a pixel scale of 0.7 arcseconds per pixel. It is located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory site at Hanle, Ladakh. "Situated at 4500 meters above mean sea level, this is one of the highest observatory sites in the world and one of the best telescope locations in the country," the site read. 

The telescope is part of a multilateral collaborative initiative known as the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) to observe transient events in the universe. The GROWTH programme is a five-year project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), a US government agency whose mission includes support for all fields of fundamental science and engineering, except for medical science.