Asteroid news: astronomers confirm a 'very close encounter'
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The image is the result of a single 120-second-long exposure, taken with a 17-inch telescope. Dr Masi said: "The telescope tracked the fast apparent motion of the asteroid, this is why
stars show as long trails, while the asteroid looks like a bright and sharp dot of light in the centre of the image, marked by an arrow. "At the imaging time, asteroid 2020 MP1 was at
about 463,000km from the Earth and it was still safely approaching us. "It was discovered by the ATLAS project on 21 June 2020." Asteroid MP1 belongs to a family of so-called
near-Earth objects or NEOs that frequently visit our corner of space.