From NASA Science - Science News : 'Talk about a close shave. On Feb. 15th an asteroid about half the size of a football field will fly past Earth only 17,200 miles above our planet's surface. There's no danger of a collision, but the space rock, designated 2012 DA14, has NASA's attention.
"This is a record-setting close approach," says Don Yeomans of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at JPL. "Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, we've never seen an object this big get so close to Earth."'
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"Asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass inside the geosynchronous satellite ring, located about 35,800 km above the equator. Its orbit about the sun can bring it no closer to the Earth's surface than 3.2 Earth radii on February 15, 2013." researchers with the NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office, wrote in an update in March 6, 2012. [ Ссылка ]
Orbit diagram:
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Close approach to Earth image:
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More information:
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Miss distant (AU) : 0.0002, Miss distant (LD) : 0.09, H (mag) : 24.4,
Relative velocity (km/s) : 7.82, Estimated diameter : 36 m -- 80 m
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Orbit diagram:
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197 total observations over interval: 2012 02 23.02780 -- 2013 01 11.08730 [ Ссылка ]
(H) -- Absolute magnitude
1 AU = ~150 million kilometers
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1 LD = Lunar Distance = ~384,000 kilometers
Credit: NASA/JPL
