The GROWTH-India telescope at the Indian Astronomical Observatory in Ladakh has captured a building-sized asteroid’s closest approach to Earth.

About GROWTH-India telescope

• GROWTH-India is India’s first fully robotic optical research telescope.
• It is a 7m wide-field telescope set up in Ladakh has tracked the rapid motion of the asteroid as it zipped across the sky at 10x lunar distance.
• This was constructed as a joint partnership between the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, with support from DST-SERB and IUSSTF.
• Current operations benefit from the generous support of the IIT Bombay alumni batch of 1994.