The challenge has started, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA), to identify the 'Christmas asteroid', which will greet the Earth on December 15 but will be visible until the 19th. Directed to amateur astronomers and enthusiasts, it will not be a easy feat: the asteroid, in fact, called 2015 RN35, has a diameter between 60 and 140 meters, smaller than the Statue of Liberty, and a visibility slightly lower than that of Pluto, so it will be observable only with telescopes of at least 30 centimeters.
Furthermore, the small celestial body will not pass very close to our planet: its orbit will take it to 686 thousand kilometers, just under double the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
Those who manage to capture the Christmas asteroid will be able to share their success on social media using the hashtag #ESAChristmasAsteroid.
2015 RN35 is interesting because of it, as of other hundreds of thousands of asteroids with similar dimensions, very little is still known: its composition, its exact size are unknown and also its orbit still has many uncertainties, although the information is enough to exclude that 2015 RN35 could hit our planet in the next 100 years.
While nearly all of the large asteroids that could pose a threat are now known, most of the medium- and small-sized ones, such as the Christmas asteroid, have yet to be discovered.
ESA's challenge was also launched to celebrate the making available of the new toolkit dedicated precisely to observing asteroids: developed by the Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Center (Neocc), based in Rome , the kit allows professionals and enthusiasts to visualize the orbit of objects approaching the Earth for free, calculate when they will be visible depending on the location and program their own observations.
