Last week, a bright asteroid Iris slipped passed the Sombrero Galaxy, and several members captured the event with the SLOOH telescopes. MaynardP. combined two images to create this animation; and EugeneM.’s image was published on the Spaceweather.com website.
While these two objects may appear similarly sized and close to each other, quite the opposite is true. 7/Iris is one of our solar system’s largest and brightest asteroids, a stony object measuring some 225 km wide and reaching 6th magnitude at perihelion. Traveling at an average 20 km/sec, Iris’ distance can be measured in millions of miles as it orbits the Sun every 1,345 days. The Sombrero Galaxy, on the other hand, is an island unto itself – an immense region of gas and dust measuring tens of thousands of light years wide and home to potentially billions of Iris-type objects. It is some fifty-million light years distant and is moving constantly away from us at an average speed of 1,000 km/sec. So, Iris and the Sombrero are really two vastly different worlds simply sharing a tiny region of the sky for just a few nights, but much to our viewing delight.
Did you, too, image this event? Check your Sombrero Galaxy folder and share your findings in the SLOOH Forum. And remember — keep a sharp eye, because you never know what treasures you’ll capture through the SLOOH telescopes.
