Once again, Richard Miles from British Astronomical Association's Asteroids and Comets section has glimpsed another fast rotating asteroid, called 2010 TD54. It is estimated that this asteroid is only 7 (+/-2) m in diameter. This asteroid is small and faint, but fortunately it is passing close to the earth at present allowing us a great view.
A one-hour session on Faulkes Telescope North on 11 October allowed Richard to identify the rotation period of this faint object as being 82.4 +/-0.2 sec or 0.0229 hours, which puts it in the top 10 fastest rotating asteroids found so far.
2010 TD54 is due to make a very close approach on 12 Oct, reaching 14th magnitude so there should be plenty of opportunity for this tentative period to be confirmed by other observers.
Many thanks to Richard and his colleagues at the BAA for allowing us access to the analysis he has done on the data.
Here is an animation of part of the asteroid's progress across the sky I made from 13 minutes of data. You can tell how quickly its moving (and therefore how close to the Sun it is!). All the data is available through our archive search (search for the name '2010 TD54'). Have a go at making an animation yourself!
