2023 DB2, discovered

Recently, the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory announced that the 1 meter Wide Field Optical Telescope (NOWT) at Nanshan Observatory of the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences A near Earth asteroid was discovered for the first time, which was confirmed by the announcement issued by the International Asteroid Center, and was awarded the temporary number 2023 DB2.

On the evening of February 28, 2023, Zhang Mi, a member of the Xingming team, found a fast moving object in the NOWT open star cluster observation data on February 26 (project leader: researcher Zhang Yu from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory).

This is the third CAS unit to discover NEAs after the National Astronomical Observatory (5) and the Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory (36).

International Asteroid Center 2023-E20 Asteroid Bulletin (screenshot of the International Asteroid Center website).

It is reported that the near Earth asteroid was discovered at the Nanshan Station of the Xinjiang Observatory at the end of February. After follow-up observation by many equipment around the world, it was confirmed that the absolute magnitude of 2023 DB2 is 21.76, with a corresponding diameter of about 200 meters. It is about two football fields. It takes 1.06 years to orbit the sun, but its closest distance from the Earth's orbit is far away from 30 million kilometers, 80 times the distance between the Earth and the moon, So it will not pose a threat to the earth.

2023 DB2 track map.

Near Earth asteroids are a very special class of small objects in the solar system, with the nearest distance from the sun not more than 1.3 astronomical units (the average distance between the sun and the earth is an astronomical unit). As they are likely to pass near the Earth in the process of orbital operation, they are the most dangerous class of small objects in the solar system to the safety of the Earth, It is also the object of concern for the development and utilization of small object resources. The discovery and observation of them are helpful to understand the composition of the primitive solar system, the distribution of water in the solar system and the dynamic evolution history of the solar system.

Nanshan 1 meter Wide Field Optical Telescope (NOWT) of Xinjiang Observatory.

According to the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, this discovery is the result of in-depth cooperation between the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory and Xingming amateur astronomical observation team using NOWT. The observatory fully supports Xingming amateur astronomical observation team's exploration in astronomy by building an exchange and cooperation platform. NOWT has become an important equipment for in-depth cooperation between Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory and amateur astronomers. From December 2022, the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory launched the asteroid search project NAS (NOWT Asteroid Survey) in cooperation with Xingming amateur astronomical observation team, including the in-depth exploration of NOWT scientific research observation data, and the allocation of part of NOWT observation time to NAS, to work together to improve NOWT's scientific research output in this direction.