Near-Earth Asteroid 2007 PA8

A collage of nine radar images shows near-Earth asteroid 2007 PA8. The images were obtained between October 31 and November 13, 2012, with data collected by NASA's 70-meter Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California. The images of 2007 PA8 reveal possible craters, boulders, an irregular, asymmetric shape, and very slow rotation. The asteroid measures approximately 1.6 kilometers wide. New radar measurements of 2007 PA8's distance and line-of-sight velocity refined calculations of its orbit about the sun, enabling reliable computation of the asteroid's motion for the next 632 years. 2007 PA8 is not a threat to Earth. NASA detects, tracks, and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

See photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16474