# 385E-421-New Aten

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/travelers-in-the-night-1048610/385e-421-new-aten
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/travelers-in-the-night-1048610/385e-421-new-aten.md
Podcast: [Travelers In The Night](https://stenobird.com/podcast/travelers-in-the-night-1048610)
Published: 2026-04-21T16:00:03+00:00
Episode link: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/385e-421-new-aten--70071331
Audio file: https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70071331/421_new_aten.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/travelers-in-the-night-1048610/episodes/385e-421-new-aten
Duration seconds: 121

## Resource

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammates Carson Fuls and Greg Lenoard discovered an Aten asteroid which orbits the Sun once every 272 days and on a path that crosses the orbits of Venus and Earth a number of times each year. Atens account for only about 6% of the Earth approaching asteroids that asteroid hunters discover. They are relatively dim and difficult to discover because they spend most of their time inside the Earth's orbit with their sunlit side facing away from us. For example Carson and Greg's newly discovered asteroid, 2017 WJ16, is bright enough for asteroid hunters to track for only about 50 nights every couple of years. It is about 150 feet in diameter and travels on an orbit which can bring it to a bit more than three times the Moon's distance from Earth. When 2017 WJ16 is closer to the Sun than Earth it travels faster then we do allowing it to catch and just barely cross our orbit as we both travel about the Sun. In 2020, 2017 WJ16 will make one of it's closer approaches to us when it comes to about less than 5 times the Moon's distance from our home planet. At that time it will be traveling at 2.9 miles/second relative to us which is well within reach of our current rocket technology. I suspect that in the future if the pattern of colors which 2017 WJ16 reflects, reveals a high metal or water content humans will mine it to construct and operate their colonies in space.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/travelers-in-the-night-1048610/episodes/385e-421-new-aten/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/travelers-in-the-night-1048610/385e-421-new-aten.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.