Amateur Astronomers Find Near-Earth Asteroid

Representatives from the European Space Agency (ESA) announce that a team of amateur astronomers managed to discover a new near-Earth asteroid (NEO) on October 12. The object will be added to the ever-growing databases of asteroids, meteorites and comets that orbit very close to our planet.

The new asteroid, called 2011 SF108, was first discovered this September, but the team that made the finding spent the past few weeks verifying their discovery. Their research was sponsored by the ESA Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program.

At its point of closest approach, the object comes within no less than 18 million miles (30 million kilometers) away from the surface of our planet. Astronomers say that, at such a distance, the NEO poses absolutely to threat to us.

The object was found by the Teide Observatory Tenerife Asteroid Survey (TOTAS) team, which is made up of 20 volunteer astronomers working in the Canary Islands, Spain, Space reports.