'Peanut-Shaped' Asteroid Whizzes Past Earth, Mercury And Venus (VIDEO)

First Posted: Aug 03, 2015 12:25 PM EDT

On July 25, scientists discovered a mile-long asteroid that raced past Earth at about 45,000 miles per hour and a safe distance of 5.4 million miles away.

The discovery created quite an interest in further research, with space agency scientists bouncing radar signals off the passing asteroid-named 1999 JD6.

With the help of NASA's Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, and the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, researchers produced images of this peanut-shaped celestial body as it whizzed on by Earth and Goldstone radar signals were transmitted toward the asteroid with the Green Bank Telescope receiving radar echoes.

"I'm interested in this particular asteroid because estimates of its size from previous observations -- at infrared wavelengths -- have not agreed," said Sean Marshall , a Cornell doctoral student in the field of astronomy, in a news release. "The radar data will allow us to conclusively resolve the mystery of its size to better understand this interesting little world."

Marshall later studied the asteroid in further detail with the help of the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico on July 29.

Radar images of asteroids -- gathered from millions of miles away in some cases -- have resolutions as small as 12 feet, with 1999 JD6 at about 30 feet.

"All of these images will allow us to determine its size and shape and measure its rotation rate -- no other Earth-based observations can match the resolution of the radar," he added. "The only way to get a better shape model would be with a spacecraft flyby."

The orbit of asteroid 1999 JD6 swings past Earth, Mercury and Venus, coming within just about 4.4 million miles of Earth about 18.6 times the distance of the moon from the Earth. The asteroid will not be coming this close to humans' home until about July 2054.