Travelers In The Night

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard was using the University of Arizona's 60 inch telescope atop Mt. Lemmon when he discovered a 50 foot diameter asteroid with an orbital period around the Sun of 364.4 days. After the discovery observations were posted this small asteroid was observed by telescopes in Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, England, New Mexico, New Zealand, Japan, France, and Australia. Greg's new space rock, 2017 FZ2, follows a path which crosses Earth's orbit twice a year as it moves from near the planet Venus's orbit to halfway to the path of Mars around the Sun. Most of the time it is so far away and dim that asteroid hunters are unable to track it.