Near Earth Objects
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RECENT CLOSE APPROACHES TO EARTH'
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1 AU = ~150 million kilometers
1 LD = Lunar Distance = ~384,000 kilometers
Object
Name
|
Close
Approach
Date
|
Miss
Distance
(AU)
|
Miss
Distance
(LD)
|
Estimated
Diameter*
|
H
(mag)
|
Relative
Velocity
(km/s)
|
| (2012 HB25) |
2012-May-11 |
0.0284 |
11.1 |
27 m - 61 m |
24.9 |
10.52 |
| 141432 (2002 CQ11) |
2012-May-12 |
0.1022 |
39.8 |
280 m - 630 m |
19.9 |
16.26 |
| (2008 CB6) |
2012-May-13 |
0.1103 |
42.9 |
10 m - 23 m |
27.1 |
10.85 |
| (2012 JU) |
2012-May-13 |
0.0014 |
0.5 |
5.9 m - 13 m |
28.3 |
13.38 |
| (2010 SO16) |
2012-May-13 |
0.1423 |
55.4 |
200 m - 460 m |
20.6 |
9.53 |
| (2012 JX11) |
2012-May-14 |
0.0422 |
16.4 |
64 m - 140 m |
23.1 |
7.64 |
| (2001 QN142) |
2012-May-15 |
0.1915 |
74.5 |
140 m - 300 m |
21.5 |
13.43 |
| (2012 GK) |
2012-May-15 |
0.0564 |
22.0 |
89 m - 200 m |
22.4 |
8.28 |
| (2011 KY15) |
2012-May-15 |
0.1586 |
61.7 |
41 m - 93 m |
24.0 |
17.61 |
| (2012 HN13) |
2012-May-15 |
0.0823 |
32.0 |
73 m - 160 m |
22.8 |
8.02 |
AU - Astronomical Unit is approximately the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun.
* An asteroid's absolute magnitude is the visual magnitude an observer would record
if the asteroid were placed 1 Astronomical Unit (AU) away, and 1 AU from the Sun and at a zero phase angle.
Data Courtesy of NASA - Near Earth Object Program
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Up and Coming NEO's
Large table so opens in a pop up window
Near Earth Objects |
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the
gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter
the Earth's neighborhood. Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles,
comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky
asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the
relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6
billion years ago. The giant outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune)
formed from an agglomeration of billions of comets and the left over bits and pieces
from this formation process are the comets we see today. Likewise, today's asteroids
are the bits and pieces left over from the initial agglomeration of the inner planets
that include Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars
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|
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The vast majority of NEOs are asteroids, referred to as Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs).
NEAs are divided into groups (Aten, Apollo, Amor) according to their perihelion distance (q),
aphelion distance (Q) and their semi-major axes (a). See table
|
| Group |
Description |
Definition |
|---|
| NECs |
Near-Earth Comets |
q<1.3 AU, P<200 years |
| NEAs |
Near-Earth Asteroids |
q<1.3 AU |
| Atiras |
NEAs whose orbits are contained entirely with the orbit of the Earth
(named after asteroid 163693 Atira). |
a<1.0 AU, Q<0.983 AU |
| Atens |
Earth-crossing NEAs with semi-major axes smaller than Earth's
(named after asteroid 2062 Aten). |
a<1.0 AU, Q>0.983 AU |
| Apollos |
Earth-crossing NEAs with semi-major axes larger than Earth's
(named after asteroid 1862 Apollo). |
a>1.0 AU, q<1.017 AU |
| Amors |
Earth-approaching NEAs with orbits exterior to Earth's but interior
to Mars' (named after asteroid 1221 Amor). |
a>1.0 AU, 1.017<q<1.3 AU |
| PHAs |
Potentially Hazardous Asteriods: NEAs whose
Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID)
with the Earth is 0.05 AU or less and whose absolute magnitude (H)
is 22.0 or brighter. |
MOID<=0.05 AU, H<=22.0 |
NEO - RECENT CLOSE APPROACHES TO EARTH |
|
Near Earth Objects - Our solar system is teeming with asteroids and comets, some of which periodically
pass close to Earth. These space rocks, called near-Earth objects, provide good opportunities for
study and can also be potentially dangerous to Earth. Ask the dinosaurs !!!
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Recent NEO Events |
|
January 27th 2012, ASTEROID NEAR MISS:
2012 BX34 is a small Aten asteroid that made a close flyby of the Earth on 27 January 2012.
The asteroid passed within 0.0004371 AU (65,390 km; 40,630 mi) of Earth during its closest
approach at 15:25 GMT, conducting one of the closest asteroid passes on record. 2012 BX34
measures around 8 meters (26 ft) across; if it had impacted in 2012, it would have been too
small to pass through Earth's atmosphere intact.
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November 8th 2011, ASTEROID NEAR MISS: Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 passed within 0.85 lunar
distances from the Earth. This was the closest an asteroid has been to Earth in 200 years, according to Nasa.
It is also the largest space rock fly-by Earth has seen since 1976; the next visit by a large asteroid will be 2028.
The aircraft-carrier-sized asteroid was darkly coloured in visible wavelengths and nearly spherical, lazily spinning about
once every 20 hours as it raced through our neighbourhood of the Solar System.
|
| January 13 2010, ASTEROID NEAR MISS: at 12:46 pm Greenwich time Asteroid 2010 AL30,
will make a close approach to the Earth's surface to within 76,000 miles, about 10-15 meters across.
|
| Novemeber 6th 2009, ASTEROID NEAR MISS: at 2132 UT, asteroid 2009 VA barely missed Earth when it
flew just 14,000 km above the planet's surface. That's well inside the "Clarke Belt" of geosynchronous satellites.
If it had hit, the 6 metre wide space rock would have disintegrated in the atmosphere as a spectacular fireball,
causing no significant damage to the ground. 2009 VA was discovered just 15 hours before closest approach by
astronomers working at the Catalina Sky Survey.
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NEO Links |
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For a complete list of recent NEO's go here
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| Potential future Earth impact events that the JPL Sentry
System has detected based on currently available observations
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