* Astronomy

Title: Astrometric and Photometric Investigations of 2009 WZ104 Near Earth Asteroid
Authors: S.V. Karashevich, A.V. Devyatkin, I.A. Vereshchagina, V.N. Lyvov, S.D. Tsekmeister

The 2009 WZ104 asteroid was discovered with 68-cm Schmidt Catalina Sky Survey telescope of Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona (USA) in 25 of November 2009. The observations of the new object were confirmed with 60-cm reflector of Schiaparelli observatory (Italy) and 35-cm Schmidt - Cassegrain telescope of Alter Saltzberg observatory (Vienna, Austria). The asteroid was attributed as potentially hazardous near Earth asteroid. The minimal orbit intersection distance is 0.0304 a.e.
The observations of the 2009 WZ104 asteroid were continued with MTM-500M 50-cm meniscus telescope and ZA-320M 32-cm mirror astrograph of Pulkovo observatory (Russia) since late 2009. The observations were made in the framework of NEOs investigation program. The following tasks were established for the investigation: to get astrometric and photometric (in BVRI bands) series of observations, to improve the asteroid orbit on the base of the observational data, to determine its taxonomic class and absolute magnitude, to investigate the dynamics of its rotation, to estimate its physical parameters. The asteroid was attributed to Aten group among NEAs.

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The 210 - 470 metre wide asteroid 2009 WZ104 will make a close pass (19.5 lunar distances, 0.0501 AU), travelling at 6.83 km/second, to the Earth-Moon system on the 4th December, 2009.

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The Lunar Distance (LD), the distance between Earth and the Moon, equals 384,401 km, (or 0.00256 AU).