![\"Asteroid](\"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Asteroid_experts_catch_final_glimpse_of_Solar_Orbiter_card_full.gif\")
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Last night, ESA\u2019s Planetary Defence<\/a> team observed the rare moment in which an object escaped our planet\u2019s gravity, in contrast to their normal objects of study \u2013 potentially hazardous rocks that could strike it.<\/p>\n At 19:15 UTC (20:15 CET) on 10 February, just over 20 hours after the launch of Solar Orbiter<\/a>, the team took the opportunity to capture this sequence of observations using the Schmidt telescope<\/a> at Calar Alto, Spain.<\/p>\n The clip covers a timespan of about 10 minutes, and is made up of 36 observations each 10 seconds long.<\/p>\n At the time it was taken, Solar Orbiter was roughly\u00a0310 000 km away from Earth and travelling to Venus for its first gravitational assist<\/a> around Christmas day this year. Still within the Moon\u2019s orbit – just – it was already a faint object in the sky, shining as bright as a magnitude 19.5 star (250 000 times fainter than we can see with the naked eye).<\/p>\n The Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre<\/a>, based at ESA\u2019s Centre for Earth Observation<\/a>\u00a0in Italy, coordinates and contributes to the observation of small Solar System bodies, in order to evaluate and monitor the risk they pose.<\/p>\n Sign up for their monthly newsletter, here<\/a>, for all latest.<\/p>\n