Large asteroid to pass close to Earth on Wednesday: NASA

By Tom James

REUTERS

 

FILE PHOTO: This color image of Earth, taken by NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope on July 6, 2015, and released on July 20, 2015. REUTERS/NASA/Handout via Reuters/File Photo

 

(Reuters) - An asteroid more than a quarter mile (400 meters) wide will pass close to Earth on Wednesday, zooming by at a distance of just over a million miles (1.8 million km), but with no chance of impact, according to NASA scientists.

 

Smaller asteroids routinely make closer passes to Earth, but 2014 J025, discovered in May 2014, will be the largest asteroid to come this near to the planet since 2004, flying by at only about 4.6 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon, 1.1 million miles (1.8 million km).

"We know the time that the object is going to be closest within seconds, and the distance is known within hundreds of kilometers (miles)," Davide Farnocchia, a mathematician at NASA's Near-Earth Object program, said by telephone on Tuesday.

Having several years of data on the asteroid's trajectory gives scientists the ability to predict its path very confidently, he added.

 

The asteroid, estimated to be between one-quarter and three-quarters of a mile (600-1,400 meters) wide and twice as reflective as the Moon, won't be visible to the naked eye, but sky watchers should be able to view it with home telescopes for one or two nights starting on Wednesday.

 

The approach of J025 will be the asteroid's closest for at least the next 500 years.

 

In 2004, the 3.1-mile (5-km) wide asteroid Toutatis passed about four lunar distances, or just under a million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth.

 

Amateur astronomers may be watching J025's journey, but Farnocchia said he and his colleagues have moved on to tracking even closer encounters, such as asteroid 1999 AN10, a half-mile (800-meter) wide rock predicted to pass only 236,000 miles (380,000 km) from Earth, or slightly less than the distance to the Moon, in 2027.

 

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle; Editing by Patrick Enright and Sandra Maler)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-04-19

2027 should be an interesting year. A 800 m flying mountain zipping by that close sound like something to hang around to watch.

Hard hats on incase they are wrong. 555

Just hope that the North Koreans don't take a pot shot at it....

Nonsense posts removed.

3 hours ago, JAG said:

Just hope that the North Koreans don't take a pot shot at it....

..or redirect it.

There just was quite close flyby few days ago

 

 

Images of todays asteroid

 

 

any one heard about pink moon??

Well it did pass by without effect. Phew, can't wait for the next comet. Might even consider building a bunker like other dumb end of worlders. Could start up a reality show to exhibit the best layed out bunker. Would that not be a show worth watching. lol 

This was asteroid, not a comet. Building a bunker might help, if the small enough meteorite would strike close by you, but not too close.It's not worth of time or effort anyway.

Here is short introduction to the difference of comets and asteroids.

This one is longer and better. I also learned new from this.

 

6 minutes ago, oilinki said:

This was asteroid, not a comet. Building a bunker might help, if the small enough meteorite would strike close by you, but not too close.It's not worth of time or effort anyway.

Here is short introduction to the difference of comets and asteroids.

This one is longer and better. I also learned new from this.

 

I stand corrected, although I meant to write asteroid. I watched a US show about bunker builders. My post was meant to ridicule them, not debate scientific fact. I also ridicule climate change deniers. My pen rai khrup

I am  that this was  a near pass. It was not as close as a recent one, and I am sure the crew on the ISS were just as happy. As a scientist said, we do not have many ways to protect earth from a strike. but  Don't  Worry , Be Happy

Geezer