Before breaking into pieces over Germany earlier this year, asteroid 2024 BX1 was clocked at a rotation speed of 2.6 seconds. That is the highest rotation speed ever observed.
An asteroid that entered Earth’s atmosphere earlier this year rotated on its axis every 2.6 seconds. That’s faster than any other infalling space rock we know of.
The object, named 2024 BX1, was probably no more than one meter in size and entered Earth’s atmosphere on January 21, where it broke up over Berlin. Some debris survived the collision with the atmosphere and was recovered.
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It was a rare example of an expected meteorite impact: an impact that is noticed before the object hits Earth. In this case, the oncoming rock was discovered only 3 hours in advance.
Elongated shape
Astronomer Maxime Devogèle of the Near-Earth Object Coordination Center from the ESA space agency in Italy, and his colleagues captured images of the space rock before it hit. They published it on the preprint website Arxiv.org. Even though the object was traveling at a speed of 50,000 kilometers per hour, the changes in brightness as it rotated were particularly noticeable thanks to its elongated shape.
These changes in brightness corresponded to an revolution time of 2.588 seconds, roughly 30 thousand revolutions per day. “It’s the fastest rotation we’ve ever observed,” says Devogèle.
Wefts
Space rocks can spin on their axis for a number of reasons, including previous collisions. In general, objects larger than a kilometer cannot rotate more than once every 2.2 hours or they would fall apart. Smaller stones, such as 2024 BX1, can withstand much faster rotational speeds because they are more compact and stronger, Devogèle says.
Measuring the rotation of these types of objects can be useful for protecting Earth from impacts. To achieve this, it is important that researchers can determine how sturdy a small space rock is and how likely it is to survive its journey through the atmosphere. “If it is hard, it will react differently than if it is a piece of snow, which has no internal strength,” says Devogèle.
