A real-life space oddity

Asteroid hurtling towards Earth may be a piece of rocket trash from 1966

AS ANy school pupil will be able to tell you, what goes up must come down – but it doesn’t usually take 54 years.

Back in 1966, the Nasa team behind an attempted Moon landing

estimated to be around 26 feet thought they would never see long – roughly the length of a bus. their rocket again after it was It was initially thought to be an swept into the Sun’s orbit. asteroid and was given the name

Now, however, it would appear ‘asteroid 2020 SO’, but it is now to be hurtling back towards Earth believed to be part of a Centaur at 1,500mph. rocket that propelled America’s

A telescope in Hawaii discovered Surveyor 2 lander to the Moon the mystery object last month. It’s 54 years ago. After releasing its payload, the rocket swept past the Moon and went into orbit around the Sun. The lander, meanwhile, ended up crashing into the Moon after one of its thrusters failed to ignite.

Nasa’s asteroid expert Paul Chodas said: ‘I’m pretty jazzed about this. It’s been a hobby of mine to find one of these and draw such a link, and I’ve been doing it for decades now. I could be wrong on this. I don’t want to appear overly confident. But it’s the first time, in my view, that all the pieces fit together with an actual known launch.’

Mr Chodas, director of the Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies

at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said the object has a near- circular orbit around the Sun, which is unusual for an asteroid.

It is also in the same plane as Earth, not tilted above or below, and is approaching at 1,500 mph – slow by asteroid standards.

He predicts it will spend four months circling in the Earth’s orbit from mid-November. It will then shoot out into its own orbit around the sun next March. Mr Chodas said he doubted the object will slam into Earth, adding: ‘At least not this time around.’