Discovery of PHA 2003 XB22 

A routine follow-up of 2003 WY153 on 2003 Dec 15 became much more than routine when a faint object with unusual motion vector was found close to the target asteroid. These observations were submitted to the Minor Planet Center and Tim Spahr noted that the object was possibly of interest. The least exotic orbit solution appeared to be of a moderate inclination but highish-eccentricity Main Belt object and he assisted in providing a search ephemeris for our next run that started on Dec 24. The object was recovered only 2 fields ahead of nominal and indeed, it had accelerated and brightened. Additional observations the same night by Jana Ticha and Milos Tichy at Klet confirmed that this is a Apollo asteroid of ~0.5km diameter which can have occasional close approaches to the Earth (see MPEC:2003-Y63 ). The animation of the discovery below is from three stacks each of six 60 second exposures.

Discovery of 2003 XB22 on 2003 Dec 15 with the 1.0-m at SSO North is to the left and west is up (c) ANU/RSAA 2003 Animated image, please wait for all frames to load.

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