* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: MASD91

Blobrana · L

Siberian observatory tracks a 'near miss' as space object speeds close to Earth

Russian scientists confirmed on Monday that a tracking station at Lake Baikal in Siberia spotted the 15-metre object, monitoring it for nine hours. It flew within 11,300 km of the Earth's surface - and initially observers thought it was an artificial object, for example a spent rocket booster, but found no known space junk that could account for it.
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Blobrana · L

The object was moving at the rate of 6.2" per minute in positional angle 71. Astrometry from 8 images was reported to Minor Planet Center using the designation MASD91. Using Find_Orb orbit determination software by Bill Gray we have obtained the following orbital elements:

Epoch 2013 Sep 28.0 TT = JDT 2456563.5   Earth MOID: 0.0000   Ve: 0.0772 
M 343.67888              (2000.0)        Ma: 0.0016 
n   0.36126837     Peri.  252.01974      0.22930384     -0.97326783 
a   1.95246273     Node   184.78142      0.94166328      0.22520304 
e   0.6228503      Incl.    8.98491      0.24635343      0.04509218 
P   2.73/996.47d   H   27.7     G   0.15   q 0.73637071  Q 3.16855475 
From 8 observations 2013 Sept. 27 (44.4 min); mean residual 0".295.