PIA18453: I Spy a Little Asteroid With My Infrared Eye
 Target Name:  Asteroid
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Spitzer Space Telescope
 Instrument:  IRAC
 Product Size:  1120 x 1120 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  IPAC-Caltech
 Other  
Information: 
JPL News Release 2014-193
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA18453.tif (3.765 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA18453.jpg (42.88 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This image of asteroid 2011 MD was taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in Feb. 2014, over a period of 20 hours. The long observation, taken in infrared light, was needed to pick up the faint signature of the small asteroid (center of frame). The Spitzer observations helped narrow down the size of the space rock to roughly 20 feet (6 meters), making it one of a few candidates for NASA's proposed Asteroid Redirect Mission for which sizes are approximately known.

This image was taken by Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera at a wavelength of 4.5 microns.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Spacecraft operations are based at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Littleton, Colorado. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Spitzer, visit http://spitzer.caltech.edu and http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Northern Arizona University/SAO

Image Addition Date:
2014-06-19