According to the Space.com, 3200 Phaethon—an Apollo asteroid—came the closest to Earth it has ever been on December 16. On that date, the Arecibo Observatory Planetary Radar—the world’s second largest single dish radio telescope captured high-quality images of the asteroid, which won’t be in such close proximity to Earth until the year 2093. The new radar images show off the asteroid’s immense size, shape, as well a, a notable dark feature near one of its poles.
-These new observations of Phaethon show it may be similar in shape to asteroid Bennu, the target of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, but 10 times larger. The dark feature could be a crater or some other topographic depression that did not reflect the radar beam back at us.
