Urumqi (ANTARA) – The Nanshan One-meter Wide-field Telescope discovered a new near-Earth asteroid, according to the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory (XAO) under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Center for Minor Planets at the International Astronomical Union confirmed the discovery and assigned the near-Earth asteroid the provisional number 2023 DB2.
The asteroid’s closest approach to Earth’s orbit is more than 30 million km, roughly 80 times the distance between Earth and the Moon, said Ali Esamdin, a researcher at XAO.
This discovery is the result of a collaboration between XAO and a team of amateur astronomers named Xingming.
Gao Xing, the leader of the amateur astronomy team, said that the cooperation between professional astronomers and amateur astronomy teams can reveal more secrets about stars and bring astronomy closer to the general public.
