Continuing work on Cinderellavator, the story of a girl, a space elevator, and the future of space travel. This gives me the opportunity to share some cool asteroid facts about Asteroid (NEO) 2016 VO1, which is a real object in space and plays a starring role in this upcoming novel.
Why would an asteroid be so important to a space elevator? I’ll discuss that in a future blog post. You may be interested to know that Asteroid (NEO) 2016 VO1 is being tracked by the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Observations Program. Ground-based planetary radar involves bouncing radar signals off of NEOs to precisely track and determine orbits and determine shapes physical characteristics when they approach within millions of miles of Earth.
That information feeds into non-profit programs like TheSkyLive, which aims to provide accurate real time data and finder charts for the most interesting Solar System objects. Currently, they track 417 objects, including Asteroid 2016 VO1. In fact, you can track this (and 400+ other) space object in real time – here’s a snapshot of data below.