Every star behaved perfectly. They all stayed exactly where they were supposed to. One object refused.
A bright line cuts across the image. It isn’t a satellite or an aircraft. It’s an asteroid called 1997 NC1, photographed from my observatory at Middlemarch as it hurried through the background stars.
It’s an impressive lump of rock — somewhere between 700m and 1.6km across.
On June 27, it passed 2.6 million kilometres from Earth, about seven times the distance to the Moon. Comfortably safe, certainly. Yet in the language of the Solar System, that’s close. An asteroid this large comes this near only about once every decade.
Astronomers classify it as "potentially hazardous" — one of those wonderfully alarming scientific terms that sounds as though someone should start boarding up the windows. It simply means its orbit deserves watching. This time, there was never any danger.
What fascinated me wasn’t its size or speed. It was the date.
1997 NC1 was discovered on July 5, 1997, almost exactly 29 years ago. I was 31. While astronomers calculated its orbit and moved on to the next discovery, the asteroid continued its endless circuit of the Sun.
Meanwhile, life happened.
Careers changed. Houses changed. Children grew up. Hair quietly disappeared.
Then, almost three decades later, our paths crossed.
Standing beneath a cold Otago sky, I photographed a rock that had been keeping this appointment since the last century.
According to the calculations, we’ll meet again on June 27, 2088.
By then I’ll be 122.
Even astronomers, who tend to be optimistic about the future, have to admit that’s asking a bit much.
The asteroid’s trail across my photograph is perfectly straight.
My own path never has been.
And, looking back, I’m rather glad of that.
