New Earth crossing asteroid

[ricci]

A small asteroid, 1.5 meter, will be today at only 0.00014 A.U. from the Earth.

www.pierpaoloricci.it/news_eng.htm

[mithrandir (Andrew)]

ricci,

K11C14 revises the ephemeris from the original figures in K11C12:

Orbital elements:
2011 CQ1                                                 Earth [62]MOID = 0.0001 AU
Epoch 2011 Feb. 8.0 TT = JDT 2455600.5                  MPC
M 220.57522              (2000.0)            P               Q
n   1.28941730     Peri.  335.20297     +0.35329796     +0.93326538
a   0.8360015      Node   315.40928     -0.84218592     +0.28714187
e   0.2075326      Incl.    5.29435     -0.40731245     +0.21578990
P   0.76           H   32.1           G   0.15           U   7

Now If I could just figure out how to turn that into Stellarium format. K11C01Q is not in Horizons or MPC yet.

[Rob_K]

Apparently it transited the solar disc earlier today, but the narrow strip of the path was over the Pacific - it then crossed S America but I don't think observatory resources were able to be activated in time. Moot point whether it would have been visible in anything other than the highest resolution imaging because of its very small angular size. However it has galvanised a fair bit of interest, particularly in setting up alerts & responses for any future events like this.

Cheers -

[koputai (Jason)]

At 1.5 metres, is it an asteroid or a meteoroid? Where is the delineation?

Cheers,
Jason.

[michaellxv (Michael)]

Was it this one?

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news170.html

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

Yep, that's close!
Fortunately it is only 1.5 metres diameter.

The one to be worried about is Asteroid 99942 Apophis (2004 MN4).
Although at a slightly more comfortable distance of 30,000k from Earth (inside the orbit of Geosynchronous satellites), it is 300 metres in diameter!

It is due on Friday 13th April (yep, Friday the 13th) 2029.
It will appear at mag 3.3 and will be visible for just over an hour as it passes by, visible towards the Constellation of Cancer which will be low in our North sky.

This pass will be safe at 30,000 k (as long as it doesn't hit any satellites), but the near miss will dramatically change the orbit of the asteroid that it may actually hit the Earth as it comes back on 13th April 2036 (no, not a Friday ).
It is estimated that if impact is made that the resultant energy release would be 15 times greater than the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated.
Chances of collision are very low.

[higginsdj]

Lets take care with how we phrase things here. The impact probability is very, very, very low. How 'dramatically' it's orbit will be changed in 2029 is also dependant on the orbit path error that far in advance. It's orbital uncertainty at present is U=1 (U=0 will give longer term accuracy) for position predictions in days time let alone decades time....

Cheers

[UniPol]

Very interesting.