It moved like a near-Earth object. Spacewatch director Robert S. McMillan and Spacewatch astronomer James V. Scotti observed the asteroid again on May 3 and May 6. They confirmed that the asteroid, officially named 2000 JW8, was an Earth-approacher. Kitt Peak reflector. MPC Director Brian Marsden reviewed the calculations and quickly concurred that, after 89 years, asteroid Albert had been rediscovered.
Astronomers now know the asteroid's orbit precisely.
They know that most of the time, asteroid 719 Albert is 300 million miles or more from the sun, and that it makes a complete orbit around the sun every 4.28 years. The close approaches are between about 19 million miles and 29 million miles from Earth, or never closer than roughly a fifth the distance from the Earth to the sun. Astronomers plan to learn more about the asteroid when it comes within 27 million miles of Earth on Sept. 5, 2001. Scientists don't know for sure how large the asteroid is because they don't know how much light is reflected by the asteroid's surface material, McMillan added. Spacewatch covers a relatively small area of sky, but it sees very faint objects farther out into the solar system than do other such surveys.