It has been a busy weekend for #TeamRadar at #Goldstone and #Canberra .
And thanks go to the optical observers who obtained lots of lightcurve data on #2024MK from Chile and South Africa.
QT NASA Asteroid Watch @AsteroidWatch
2024 June 30
New radar imagery of 2024 MK from @NASAJPL ’s Goldstone Solar System Radar. These images - taken when the #asteroid was about 240K miles away - reveal 2024 MK is about 500 ft. wide. Stay tuned for more #2024MK science.
@michael_w_busch Excellent! I remember when Goldstone would pair with Aricebo for nearby radar obs; do you know who they use now?
@flyingcircuits We rarely did bistatic observations between GSSR and Arecibo, because the Arecibo dish started to become transparent at 8.56 GHz. Usually, one of GSSR and Arecibo would transmit while the Green Bank Telescope received.
We still do Goldstone - GBT bistatic observations, but GBT is offline for repairs this month.
These images of 2024 MK were obtained using GSSR on DSS-14 at Goldstone and receiving with the DSS-13 antenna also at Goldstone.
Canberra used DSS-43 and the ATCA.
@michael_w_busch Thank you for the behind the scenes information, that's fascinating. It's great that you could configure to do tx/rx from the same facility for this one. Congratulations on successful imaging, and *thank you* for keeping an eye on our sometimes-pesky neighbors!
