Feb 26, 2018
On February 25, the near-Earth asteroid 2018 DU will make a very close encounter with the Earth, safely coming closer than the moon. We captured it to share it with you.
The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid. This is why stars leave long trails, while the asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the center of the image. At the imaging time, asteroid 2018 DU was at about 195,000 miles (315,000 km) from the Earth, closer than our moon, and it was approaching us. This ~10-meter-large asteroid will reach its minimum distance ~175,000 miles (284,000 km) from us on February 25, 2018, at 18:22 UTC [12:22 p.m. CST; translate UTC to your time].
