NASA captures images of the fastest-spinning asteroid ever seen

NASA’s Goldstone facility recorded 41 radar images of the near-Earth asteroid 2025 OW during a safe pass about 400,000 miles away. That distance is roughly one and a half times the distance to the Moon.

The object spans about 200 feet across and spins once every 1.5 to 3 minutes. That speed places it among the fastest rotators ever mapped by NASA radar.

Mapping asteroid 2025 OW

The campaign was carried out at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The team operates the Goldstone Solar System Radar and studies near-Earth asteroids and their orbits.

The data resolved surface features down to 12 feet. These observations used planetary radar, a method that creates radio images of asteroids using ground-based transmitters.

Goldstone uses a 230-foot dish antenna in the Mojave Desert near Barstow, California. The system is part of the Deep Space Network that links spacecraft and planetary science.

Astronomers first spotted 2025 OW with the Pan-STARRS2 telescope in Hawaii on July 4, 2025. Radar follow-up then tightened its orbit and future motion for decades.

Physics of spinning asteroids

Most rubble pile asteroids larger than a few hundred feet rotate slower than the spin barrier of about 2.2 hours. That limit comes from the balance of gravity and centrifugal force.

Asteroid 2025 OW spins far faster than that limit. It likely behaves as a solid body rather than a cluster of rocks held together by gravity.

Weak material cohesion can let some rubble piles resist breakup at higher speeds. Even a small amount of strength between grains can make a big difference.

This distinction matters for risk studies and mission planning. A solid rock sheds debris in different ways than a loose aggregate.

Sunlight can spin small worlds

The leading driver behind such rapid spins is the YORP effect, a sunlight recoil torque that changes an asteroid’s rotation. It happens when sunlight warms an irregular surface and reradiated heat creates a tiny push.

The existence of this effect has been confirmed by precision measurements of small asteroids. Over time, the push can speed up or slow down a spin.

For objects the size of 2025 OW, the push acts more quickly than it does for larger bodies. That is because smaller objects have less mass to resist a given torque.

YORP can also change the tilt of the spin axis. Those shifts may alter how sunlight warms the surface, which feeds back into the cycle.

Rotation altering asteroid forms

When small asteroids accelerate beyond their structural limits, their surfaces can shed dust and rocks into space. These loose fragments drift away under the asteroid’s weak gravity, sometimes creating a thin cloud of material that gradually escapes into orbit.

These particles can form faint, temporary debris tails – thin streams of material that make the asteroid resemble a comet for a short time. Repeated shedding events can gradually strip the asteroid down to a stronger, more compact core.

High-speed rotation also changes an asteroid’s shape evolution, the process by which its body alters over time. As centrifugal force pushes outward, some asteroids flatten at the poles and bulge at the equator, forming a “spinning top” shape.

Several fast rotators studied by NASA’s radar and optical telescopes show this same pattern, suggesting that surface landslides and internal stress may sculpt these odd forms.

Radar tracking of 2025 OW

Precise distance and velocity measurements reduce orbit uncertainty. Goldstone’s observations tightened the forecast for 2025 OW’s path for many decades.

That improvement supports warning time and hazard assessment. A well-constrained orbit tells us how close and how often a similar pass might happen.

The Deep Space Network provides the communications backbone for these radar campaigns. It also supports dozens of spacecraft across the Solar System.

Each radar pass delivers more than a snapshot. It yields shape, spin, and surface hints that help scientists test models of small body evolution.

Lessons from asteroid 2025 OW

A 200-foot asteroid would not survive such a spin if it were a loose aggregate without strength. That is why researchers consider 2025 OW either a solid object or a tightly bound body.

The 12-foot resolution is fine enough to map boulders and pits. Those details help test whether the surface is rugged or smoother than expected.

The July 28 pass was the closest approach for the foreseeable future. That gives the team time to model the object’s rotation and shape in more detail.

Future campaigns can track changes in spin that reveal ongoing YORP torques. Even a tiny shift across years can be measured with radar.

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