Travelers In The Night

Dangerous Asteroids Are Still Out There Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard discovered a rapidly moving point of light in the night sky. Subsequent observations made by telescopes in Arizona, Romania, Illinois, the Czech Republic, Australia, and France revealed it to be a close approaching Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. The Minor Planet Center named it 2016 WJ1. This asteroid is about 200 yards in diameter, orbits the Sun once every 567 days, and currently can come to within about 26,000 miles of the Earth's surface. 2016 WJ1's orbit eventually will bring it near Mars, Earth, our Moon, and Venus. Any of these encounters have the potential to change it's path around the Sun.