2012 BX34 missed Earth this morning

[gary]

In an article today, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that an asteroid, 2012 BX34,
came within 60,000km of the Earth at approx 04:00 AEDT this morning.

Estimated to be between 6 to 19 meters in diameter, the object was discovered
by astronomers in Arizona on Wednesday.

See http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/spacewatchers-admit-near-miss-as-asteroid-passes-earth-20120128-1qmoi.html

[Matt Wastell]

Would have been like Bart (Simpson's) comet - would have burnt up in our atmosphere due to the pollution if it got too close!
A close shave indeed!

[Dennis]

Thanks for that piece of news Gary. Pity about the clouds I would like to have had a go at that one, although at around mag 15 and moving that quickly, it would have been a very tough capture!

Cheers

Dennis

[mithrandir]

I calculated these elements with Find_Orb for anyone who has a suitable sucker hole and wants to give it a go.

2012 BX34
Perihelion 2012 Apr 28.095101 TT = 2:16:56 (JD 2456045.595101)
Epoch 2012 Jan 27.0 TT = JDT 2455953.5 Earth MOID: 0.0002 Me: 0.0884
M 232.78387 (2000.0) P Q
n 1.38135610 Peri. 329.22674 0.11506757 0.97925304
a 0.79848289 Node 306.86221 -0.86368807 0.01567570
e 0.3125459 Incl. 12.03338 -0.49071617 0.20203400
P 0.71/260.61d H 27.6 G 0.15 q 0.54892029 Q 1.04804548
From 65 observations 2012 Jan. 25-27; RMS error 0.813 arcseconds
# Perturbers: Earth Moon