Our cover picture ...
... shows a "giant meteoroid": the radar image of the asteroid 2007 TU24. On 29 January 2008 at 9:33 CET it passed Earth at a distance of only 554209 km. This corresponds to a distance of 1.44 lunar radii. 2007 TU24 was discovered on 11 October 2007 by Alex Gibbs with the 68cm Schmidt telescope of the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. The radar telescopes of Goldstone, Arecibo and Green Bank observed the asteroid during its flyby and found that it has a diameter of about 250 m and an asymmetric shape, which also manifested itself in its light variation.
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