October 17, 2003	Friday	Sha'aban 20, 1424

PARIS: Scientists have found an 800-metre-wide asteroid that had been “lost” since 1937, the International Union of Astronomy announced here on Thursday.

The asteroid was discovered by the astronomer Karl Weimuth on October 28, 1937, when it came to within a million kilometres of the Earth.

Christened the UB asteroid and later renamed Hermes, it soon disappeared from view. However, over the years scientists continued to search the skies for it, without success.

On October 4, the Minor Planet Centre of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory of Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced that the orbital characteristics of a newly discovered Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) “presented striking similarities with UB of 1937”.

Named 2002 SY50, it appeared to have come from the asteroid belt that circles the Sun in an orbit between the Earth and Mars.

On Thursday, the Paris-based International Union of Astronomy confirmed that it was indeed the Hermes asteroid that had been spotted.

Scientists will now attempt to map the orbit of the wayward asteroid, which they believe takes it around the sun in a little more than two years.—dpa