If any clear skies occur during the last week of October, don’t miss any opportunities to view a 700-metre-wide space rock with the catchy designation 162082 (1998 HL1) as it hurtles past our planet slightly more than sixteen lunar distances away at 17:20 UT (6:20pm BST) on 25 October 2019.
Predicted to reach a peak magnitude of +12.4 on 27 October, this near-Earth asteroid is a viable target for 6-inch (15-cm) aperture telescopes and larger for five nights as it zips through the constellations of Triangulum, Aries and into Cetus at rates of up to 9 degrees/day relative to the background stars. (See the bottom of this page for a table of predicted positions at hourly intervals for observers in the UK and Western Europe.)Although classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA), there is no chance that 1998 HL1 could collide with Earth for at least 120 years. The next time it passes closer to Earth than this apparition is on 26 October 2140 when it zips by our planet at a distance of 6.18 million kilometres, or 3.8 million miles.Discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project at Socorro, New Mexico on 18 April 1998, 162082 (1998 HL1) is an Apollo-type asteroid that loops the Sun once every 508 days in an eccentric orbit inclined by 20 degrees to the ecliptic.
Ceres, the largest minor planet inside the orbit of Neptune, passed closest to Earth on the evening of 22 October — the night of the last quarter Moon. With the lunar crescent now confined to the morning sky, grab your binoculars or telescope, print out some star charts from our online guide and track down the brightest of the dwarf planets while at its best.
Clear nights of early Northern Hemisphere autumn offer ideal opportunities to track down the two outermost planets of the solar system, Uranus and Neptune. What’s more, you don’t need a big telescope to find them. We show you how to locate these gas giants using binoculars. The Moon also passes close to Neptune on 20 October.
Comet 252P/LINEAR will zip past Earth on Monday, 21 March at a range of about 3.3 million miles. The following day, comet P/2016 BA14 will safely fly by our planet at a distance of about 2.2 million miles, or nine times the distance to the Moon. This will be the second closest flyby of a comet in recorded history next to comet D/1770 L1 (Lexell) in 1770.