Asteroid 2012 DA14. Historical Event. Passing Within Geosynchronous Ring.

Asteroid to pass close by Earth on Friday

* Nearest approach at 2:24 p.m. EST/1924 GMT on Friday

* No chance of impact, scientists say

* Encounter will cause asteroid's orbit to change

By Irene Klotz

BOSTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - A newly discovered asteroid about half the size of a football field will pass nearer to Earth than any other known object of its size on Friday, giving scientists a rare opportunity for close-up observations without launching a probe.

At its closest approach, which will occur at 2:24 p.m. EST/1924 GMT, the asteroid will pass about 17,200 miles (27,520 km) above the planet traveling at 8 miles (13 km) per second, bringing it nearer than the networks of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.

Although Asteroid 2012 DA14 is the largest known object of its size to pass this close, scientists say there is no chance of an impact, this week or in the foreseeable future.

Currently, DA14 matches Earth's year-long orbit around the sun, but after Friday's encounter its flight path will change, said astronomer Donald Yeomans, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"The close approach will perturb its orbit so that actually instead of having an orbital period of one year, it'll lose a couple of months," Yeomans said. "The Earth is going to put this one in an orbit that is considerably safer," he said.

The non-profit Space Data Association, which tracks satellites for potential collisions, analyzed the asteroid's projected path and determined no spacecraft would be in its way.

"There is no reason to believe that this asteroid poses a threat to any satellites in Earth orbit," Space Data operations manager T.S. Kelso said in a statement.

read more at THIS LINK

FROM NASA
IMAGES 

Graphic depicts the trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 on Feb 15, 2013. In this view, we are looking down from above Earth's north pole. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Larger view

Graphic depicts the trajectory of asteroid 2012 DA14 during its close approach, as seen edge-on to Earth's equatorial plane. The graphic demonstrates why the asteroid is invisible to northern hemisphere observers until just before close approach: it is approaching from "underneath" our planet. On the other hand, after close approach it will be favorably placed for observers in the northern hemisphere. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
› Larger view

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 

Q: What is asteroid DA14

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 is a small near-Earth object – approximately 150 feet (45 meters) in diameter. On Feb. 15, 2013, the asteroid will pass by our planet at a remarkably close distance, but the asteroid’s path is understood well enough that there is no chance of a collision with the Earth.

Q: What date and what time will the asteroid be closest to Earth?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 will be closest to Earth on Feb. 15 at approximately 19:24 UTC (2:24 p.m. EST/11:24 a.m. PST). This time may change by a minute or two as the asteroid is tracked on its approach and predictions are refined.

At the time of closest approach, the asteroid will be over the eastern Indian Ocean, off Sumatra -- approx. latitude: -6 deg South. / longitude: 97.5 deg East.

Q: How far away will asteroid 2012 DA14 be at time of closest approach?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 will be only about 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometers) above Earth's surface at the time of closest approach on Feb 15, 2013. This distance is well outside Earth's atmosphere, but it is inside the belt of satellites in geostationary orbit, which is located 22,200 miles (35,800 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. The close-approach distance is only about one-tenth the distance between Earth and moon. Another way to express the distance between asteroid and Earth at time of closest approach is 4.4 Earth radii from Earth’s surface – or about twice the diameter of the Earth.

Q: Could asteroid DA14 impact Earth?

 A: No. The orbit of asteroid 2012 DA14 is well understood – it will not come any closer than 17,150 miles (27,650 kilometers) above Earth's surface during its flyby on Feb 15, 2013.

The asteroid’s orbit around the sun is roughly similar to that of Earth, and it makes relatively close approaches to our planet’s orbit twice per orbit. But, the 2013 flyby is by far the closest the asteroid will approach our planet for many decades. The next notable close approach to Earth will be on February 15, 2046, when the asteroid will pass no closer than 620,000 miles (1,000,000 kilometers) from the center-point of Earth.

While this is the closest possible distance based on observations and calculations as of February 4, 2013, future observations will refine the calculation and may increase the minimum distance of the flyby. As of Feb 9, 2013, the minimum distance is now 1.6 million km or 995,000 miles from the center of Earth. For the most current calculations for this asteroid, visit: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2012%20DA14;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=1;rad=0#cad

Q: What makes 2012 DA14 special?

 A: The flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 is the closest ever predicted Earth approach for an object this large.

Q: How long will asteroid 2012 DA14 be within the Earth/moon system?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14's will be within the Earth/moon system for about 33 hours. Its orbit will bring it within the Earth/moon system (approach within one lunar distance, 237,000 miles of the Earth) on Feb. 15 at about 0300 UTC (7 p.m. PST on Thursday, Feb. 14). The asteroid will exit the Earth/moon system on Feb. 16 at about 1200 UTC (4 a.m. PST).

Q: Is there a chance that asteroid 2012 DA14 could be eclipsed by Earth?

 A: Because of its trajectory, there is no chance that asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass through Earth’s shadow.

Q: How big is asteroid 2012 DA14?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 is currently estimated to be about 150 feet (45 meters) across and has an estimated mass of about 130,000 metric tons. If radar observations of this asteroid are successful, we might have a more accurate estimate of the asteroid’s size after its close approach.

Q: How fast will the asteroid be traveling at closest approach?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA 14 is traveling at about 17,450 miles per hour (28,100 kilometers per hour), or 4.8 miles per second (7.82 kilometers per second) relative to Earth.

Q: Who discovered asteroid DA14?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 was discovered by the La Sagra Sky Survey operated by the Astronomical Observatory of Mallorca in Spain on Feb. 23, 2012. The asteroid was about 2.7 million miles (4.3 million kilometers) distant when it was detected. Their observations were reported to the NASA funded Minor Planet Center, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for the International Astronomical Union, where all observations from observatories worldwide are combined to maintain the database on all known asteroids and comets in our solar system.

Q: How many asteroids are out there similar in size to asteroid DA14?

 A: Scientists believe there are approximately 500,000 near-Earth asteroids the size of 2012 DA14. Of those, less than one percent have been discovered.

Q: How many times do asteroids the size of DA14 fly this close?

 A: Scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office in Pasadena, Calif. estimate that an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14 flies this close every 40 years on average and that one will impact Earth, on average, about once in every 1,200 years.

Q: Is there a chance that asteroid DA14 will collide with one or more satellites?

 A: There is very little chance that asteroid 2012 DA14 will impact a satellite or spacecraft. Because the asteroid is approaching from below Earth, it will pass between the outer constellation of satellites located in geosynchronous orbit (22,245 miles/35,800 kilometers) and the large concentration of satellites orbiting much closer to Earth. (The International Space Station, for example, orbits at the close-in altitude of 240 miles/386 kilometers.). There are almost no satellites orbiting at the distance at which the asteroid will pass.

Q: What will asteroid DA14’s close pass do to Earth’s rotation/tides/fault lines/etc.

 A: The gravitational influence upon Earth and its inhabitants by the flyby of asteroid 2012 DA14 will be infinitesimally small.

Q: What would happen if DA14 were to impact Earth?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not impact Earth, but if another asteroid of a size similar to that of 2012 DA14 (about 150 feet across) were to impact Earth, it would release approximately 2.5 megatons of energy in the atmosphere and would be expected to cause regional devastation.

A comparison to the impact potential of an asteroid the size of 2012 DA14 could be made to the impact of a near-Earth object that occurred in 1908 in Tuguska, Siberia. Known in the asteroid community as the "Tunguska Event," this impact of an asteroid just slightly smaller than 2012 DA14 (approximately 100 – 130 feet/30-40 meters across) is believed to have flattened about 825 square miles (2200 square kilometers) of forest in and around the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.

Q: Can I see the asteroid during its close approach?

 A: Asteroid 2012 DA14 is small, so even though it will make a close flyby of Earth, the asteroid's apparent magnitude is expected to peak at about only 7.4 – too dim to be viewed by the naked eye. To view the asteroid, you will need a good pair of binoculars, or even better, a moderately powered telescope.

During the closest approach, and dependant on local weather, the asteroid will be visible from parts of Europe, Africa and Asia. The asteroid will appear to be moving relatively quickly as it crosses the sky from the south to the north.

Q: What is NASA doing about asteroid 2012 DA14?

 A: As there is no chance of impact, there is nothing that needs to be done about the asteroid. However, the flyby of 2012 DA14 is a great opportunity for science. NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar, located in California's Mojave Desert, will observe the asteroid on Feb. 16, 18, 19 and 20. Due to the asteroid's small size, the radar images generated are expected to be no more than a few pixels across. It will also be observed by numerous optical observatories worldwide to attempt to determine its spin rate and composition.

Near Earth Asteroid, 85 Foot 2012 KP24 Passing Approx. 1/5th The Distance To The Moon

UPDATE: 5/29/2012
HERE IS THE INFORMATION I COULD PULL FROM THIS INTERNET TODAY TO UPDATE YOU ON THE 6TH CLOSEST NEAR EARTH OBJECT THAT HAS EVER BEEN RECORDED...


SMALL ASTEROID BUZZES EARTH: Newly-discovered asteroid 2012 KT42 is flying past Earth today (May 29th) only ~14,000 km above the planet's surface. This means 2012 KT42 will actually fly inside the Clark Belt of geosynchronous satellites. The 3- to 10-meter wide asteroid ranks # 6 on the top 20 list of closest-approachers to Earth. According to the asteroid's orbit, there is no danger of a collision. Even if it did hit, this space rock is too small to cause significant damage. It would likely disintegrate almost entirely in the atmosphere, peppering the ground below with relatively small meteorites. Flyby images: #1, #2.
source: spaceweather.com

2012 KT42 - Close Approach

May 29, 2012 at about 07:07 UT, the asteroid designated2012 KT42 will pass only ~14,000 km (8,700 miles) or about ~0.05 lunar distance (or 0.0001379 AU) above the Earth's surface. The asteroid was discovered by A. R. Gibbs in the course of Mt. Lemmon Survey with a 1.5-m reflector + CCD on May 28, 2012 at magnitude ~18.1.

According to its absolute magnitude (H=28.8) this asteroid has an estimated size of roughly 3-10 meters, so it is a small object. We have been able to follow-up this object soon after his discovery while it was still on the neocp, from the Siding Spring-Faulkes Telescope South on 2012, May 28.4, through a 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD.

At the moment of our images from FTS, "2012 KT42" was moving at about ~3.63 "/min and its magnitude was ~17.5. At the moment of its close approach around 07UT of tomorrow, 2012 KT42 will be bright as magnitude ~12.0 and moving at ~11021"/min.

Below you can see an image (stack of 5x5-second exposures) showing the asteroid. Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger version:

Below you can see an animation showing the motion of 2012 KT42. Each frame is a 5-second exposure through the FTS 2.0-m telescope. Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger version:

While there is no cause for concern, this is one of the closest approaches recorded. The table below shows the top 20 closest approaches by NEOs (Near-Earth Objects) sorted by nominal distance. The table has been computed on the NASA/Neo-JPL website. 2012 KT42 is the sixth closer approach to date. (2011 CQ1 is the closest non-impacting object in the asteroid catalog to date. The event that took 2008 TC3 into the earth's atmosphere is not included). Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger version:

On mpml mailing list, Andrew Lowe pointed out that on May 29 at about 10:10 UT,  2012 KT42 the minimum geocentric elongation from the center of the sun will be 0.1 degrees, so given the parallax there will be a transit across the sun. But with a diameter of about 5m, the object could be only about 0.07" across against the solar disk. Aldo Vitagliano provided this map of the transit (computed by his software Solex). Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger version:

According to calculation made by P. Tricarico, 2012 KT42 has experienced a partial eclipse while approaching Earth on May 28, 2012 between 14:05 UTC and 21:45 UTC, before the flyby. See animation below (click on it for a bigger version). Probably the first case ever of an approaching asteroid experiencing an eclipse and a transit during the same flyby with Earth. More info about this on Tricarico's website.

by Ernesto Guido, Nick Howes & Giovanni Sostero 
source: http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/2012/05/2012-kt42-close-approach.html


29 MAY, 2012, 12.59PM IST, PTI 

2012 KT42, a newly found asteroid buzzes past Earth

NEW DELHI: A newly-discovered asteroid passed in close proximity to the Earth, just 14,000 km above the planet's surface, today but caused no damage to the orbiting communication satellites. 

The asteroid " 2012 KT42," which entered the Clark Belt of geosynchronous satellites, passed by Earth at around 1230 hours, S N Raghunandan Kumar of Planetary Society of India told PTI. 

The 3 to 10-metre wide asteroid ranks in the list of top ten of closest asteroid approaches to Earth. In fact, this is the sixth closest approach till date, which makes it significant despite its small size. 

The asteroid was not visible to the unaided eye. According to the asteroid's orbit, there was no danger of a collision. Even if it did hit, the space rock is too small to cause significant damage. It would have possibly disintegrated almost entirely in the atmosphere, peppering the ground below with relatively small meteorites, Kumar said. 

Asteroids are a class of solar system bodies in the orbit around the sun. The larger asteroids are been called planetoids.
source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/2012-kt42-a-newly-found-asteroid-buzzes-past-earth/articleshow/13634407.cms


-----------------------------------------end update-------------------------------------------------------


Yes, another asteroid, another near earth object.  This one is approximately 85 feet large and will come within an estimated 40389 mile distance to Earth.   Therefore, this object will come between the Earth and the Moon, between which the distance is 238,900 miles.  This means, the large object will be really close to Earth.  Here is the information that I scoured from the Internet on the subject.  I cannot vouch for all of the validity because of it coming from the Internet.  However, be aware that the magnetic pull during the next few days may cause further and larger earthquake activity, as well as volcanic activity.  This object is code condition 8, which means UNCERTAIN.  This was found only yesterday and observed since then.  Therefore, there is not much data on this body.  According to what I can pull from the Internet, the approximate day of closest passing will be between May 28-29, 2012.  


Object Information:
The Newly Discovered Asteroid 2012 KP24, other NEOs & Night Sky
2012 KP24 JPL: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2012%20KP24;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=1#cad
2012 KP24 MPC: http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=2012+KP24&am...
NEO Earth Close Approaches: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
HORIZONS: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi
Purdue University, Impact Earth: http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/

Asteroid 2012 KP24 0.1 LD 26 M Close to Earth on 29 May 2012 alignment of earth venus sun mercury mars gravitational pull earthquakes tsunami hurricanes earth distance 0.0024 AU sun distance 1.012 AU

Asteroid 2012 KP24 on 29 May 2012 aligns earth venus sun mercury mars gravitational pull earthquakes tsunami hurricanes earth distance 0.0024 AU sun distance 1.012 AU

Asteroid 2012 KP24 0.1 LD 26 M Close to Earth on 29 May 2012 alignment of earth venus sun mercury mars gravitational pull earthquakes tsunami hurricanes earth distance 0.0024 AU sun distance 1.012 AU

the idea girl says

it may not be a true alignment but to the eye it sure looks like one in this graph..

NOT GOOD!

it’s bad enough having Cuno 4183 asTEROID 7.8 km CLOSE TO EARTH AND THEN OVER 1293 OTHER’S KICKING CLOSE TO EARTH, DID YOU NOTICE THE NUMBERS WHEN UP FOR THAT TOO?

source: ClickHere

Dinosaurs Farted Themselves Into eXTINCTion? Seriously a New Theory!

Can you believe this?   I laughed so hard about this one!!!  I'm going to tell you the "story" in my own words, with the facts involved, but the story that I refer to is found on Fox News.com.

Dinosaurs 'gassed' themselves into extinction, British scientists say

Published May 07, 2012

NewsCore

Okay, so British scientists have a new theory on how the dinosaurs became extinct.  


"What's that!", you say?


They say that dinosaurs literally FARTED themselves to their extinction, LOL!!!  


My husband and I were reading this in bed last night and were laughing so hard that we were almost crying.


We all know that scientists create "theories".  But, aren't there measurements and calculations?  Yep.  There were actual researchers that calculated the methane gases that might have been "oopsed" out of dinosaurs.  They calculated just how much gas was "let out" per year and say that it was enough to warm the planet and kill off the dinosaurs.


Just how did they compare the farts of the dinosaurs to the farts of today?  I sure wouldn't want to be part of that research team!

What happened to the asteroid theory?  What happened to the pole shift theory?  What happened to the volcano theory? What happened to Al Gore's theory on Global Warming?...and for that matter, is Al Gore behind this new theory?

Seriously!  How did scientists mathematically calculate the amount of methane excreted...no relieved of ...no farted by dinosaurs?

Did the scientists measure the methane excreted by cows and then divided that by the ton of the animal and multiplied that by the guessed tonage of each dinosaur, migrating the math, and farting the numbers out for a new scientific theory?  What a mammoth task!  

Have the scientists farted out a number for the gasious global warming caused by the farts of humans?  After all, didn't Al Gore say that it was the human population's consumption that was the problem?

How much longer do we have?  Will our farts end us all?  What can save us?  

Pretty soon, we'll be gassing into recycled plastic vacuum seal bags and the new NASA project will be to take those up to space and release the gasses into space, only to add to the already abundant space junk with the recycled plastic bags.

What do you think about this new gas bomb theory?

Really.  We want to know!

This is seriously a story that is seriously out there in the science community...  Seriously.  Just "Google" it.  I didn't believe it at first either.

Have a fantastic day!

New Near-Earth Asteroid February 2013. Danger or No Danger?

By above Youtube poster...

Uploaded by dutchsinse on Mar 4, 2012
thanks to pinksapphiret for getting this out on youtube:

Quote the article:TheExtinctionProtocol

Scientists are predicting that the asteroid 2012 DA14 has a good chance of colliding with earth in eleven months. 

Watch the skies in February 2013! 

According to RT, NASA has confirmed that the 60 meter (or 197 feet) asteroid, which was spotted by Spanish stargazers in February this year, has a good chance of colliding with earth. The scientists suggest confronting this asteroid with either big guns or, more strangely, with paint. 

The problem with either option is that there is no time to build a spaceship for the operation. A spaceship could either shoot the asteroid down or simply crash into it -- this would either break it into pieces or throw it off course. 

NASA expert David Dunham suggested: "We could paint it." The paint would change the asteroid's ability to reflect sunlight, alter its spin and change its temperature. However, even taking the asteroid off course could be dangerous when it returns in 2056, according to Aleksandr Devaytkin the head of the observatory in Russia's Pulkovo, as told to Izvestia in Russia recently.

The asteroid's closest approach to earth is scheduled for 15 February 2013, when they predict that the distance between it and earth will be under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). With the asteroid zooming that low, it will be too late to do anything with it besides trying to predict its final destination and the consequences of impact. 

However, NASA's David Dunham did say: "The asteroid may split into pieces entering the atmosphere. In this case, most parts of it will never reach the planet's surface." But theories are that if the entire asteroid did crash into the planet, the impact will be as hard as in the Tunguska blast, which in 1908 knocked down trees over a total area of 2,150 sq km (830 sq miles) in Siberia.

So keep your head down and watch the skies. "

March 2 2012 , 19:55   |   Science   |   Artem Kuibida4

The Americans offered to paint the asteroid, and Russian - to blow up

NASA experts with Russian colleagues decide what to do with potentially dangerous for the Earth's celestial body - the 60-meter asteroid 2012 DA14Planet Earth. Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image

NASA experts have recognized that asteroid 2012 DA14, Spanish Open a week ago, astronomers can fall to Earth. The fall may occur after February 2013 will change the orbit of its flight. This statement was made by Dr. David Dunham, director of projects for the Study of NASA deep space, speaking March 1 at the Moscow State Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM).

- Due to the interaction with the Earth by gravity trajectory of its flight will be greatly changed, it must be well calculated, in order to understand how big a threat of collision with the following approximation of the Earth - says Dunham. - Maybe an asteroid will fall apart in our orbit around a lot of tiny pieces of it break away or a few large pieces and burned. Necessary to carry out its spectral analysis, then we can determine the type of asteroid, its mineral structure, which will assume his behavior in the atmosphere and methods of influence on him to prevent a possible threat.

NASA experts agree that if we consider the convergence of the Earth 2012 DA14 c in February next year, when the asteroid is on us only 29 thousand miles, then take things too late. on the design, development and preparation for the launch of a special spacecraft that could somehow affect the celestial body, it would take at least two years.

Proven systems to counter asteroids do not - this kind of development there are still only in preliminary design. For example, in Russia, projects satellite-killers trained in the Makeev Rocket Center and NPO. Lavochkin. In addition, we have no weapons against satellites, we have no system for tracking threats from space and learn about them in advance. The case of asteroid 2012 DA14 indicative in this sense: according to Secretary of the Expert Council on Space Sciences for Threats Sergei Naroenkova, the object is flying in its present orbit is not the first year (estimated, about three years), and places its trajectory almost overlaps with the trajectory our planet. But to discover an asteroid was only last week.

- If the object will fly to us from the sun, then we are unlikely to be ready to reflect, - said Alexander Devyatkin, deputy director of the Pulkovo Observatory. - In the daytime we can not detect an asteroid because of the huge background of the sky. More reliable in preventing the threats will be possible only when the spacecraft will be launched for continuous monitoring of Earth-threatening objects.

In February of next year 2012 DA14 can fly past the planet and the encounter with her ​​in one of the following turns. By this turn of events, scientists are encouraged to prepare in advance.- The easiest way to do classically - to destroy an asteroid hitting his body, or other device with a nuclear charge - says Robert Farquhar, head of the NASA mission to Pluto, Mercury, developer of the program mission, NEAR and MESSENGER. - An asteroid flies with great speed and in a collision with a massive spaceship would fly just under the force of its own kinetic energy. But now we are dealing with a small asteroid - 60 m in diameter, so the calculation must be very precise.

Dunham offers an asteroid repaint.

- The paint will change the reflectivity of the asteroid. Because of this, solar power will begin to act differently on it and change the trajectory of the body - he said.

Russian scientists consider painting the asteroids effective, but not the most effective measure, favoring the elimination of more radical methods.

- The idea to paint an asteroid of this size is technically feasible, but not radical. This will change the trajectory of its rotation, but almost certainly within a few decades, the threat of a collision will be even greater - Eismont says Nathan, senior researcher at the Institute of Space Research. - It is necessary to know very well what reflective, he had become and what not to do worse. We should not forget that during the flight of asteroids tend to rotate and the colored side is not always facing the sun, which causes additional problems.

According Devyatkina to effectively meet threats from outer space should be as soon as possible to create a system for monitoring and multiple spacecraft. 

source: IZVESTA

No, asteroid 2012 DA14 will not hit us next year

For the tl;dr crowd, let’s get this out of the way right away: asteroid 2012 DA14 is almost certainlynot going to hit the Earth next February. And by "almost certainly", I mean it: the odds of an impact are so low they are essentially zero. This does not rule out an impact at some future date, but for now we’re safe.

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So what’s the story?

A small near-Earth asteroid was discovered in late February by astronomers at the Observatorio Astronómico de La Sagra in Spain, less than two weeks ago. Designated 2012 DA14, it’s estimated to be about 45 meters (150 feet) in diameter, and has an orbit that is similar to Earth’s.

Its orbit is an inclined ellipse, tilted a bit compared to Earth’s orbit around the Sun (the positions of Earth and DA14 are shown for August of 2012 — I picked that randomly to make the orbits clear), and it spends most of its time well away from our planet. However, the path of the rock does bring it somewhat close to the Earth twice per orbit, or about every six months. The last time it passed us was on February 16 – two weeks ago — when it was about 2.5 million km (1.5 million miles) away, equal to about 6 times the distance to the Moon. That’s usually about the scale of these encounters — it misses us by quite a margin.

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February 2013: a close shave

Next year, on February 15, 2013, DA14 will actually get pretty close to Earth. It will pass us at a distance of about 27,000 km (17,000 miles) — well beneath many of our own orbiting satellites! To the best of my knowledge, this is the closest pass of a decent-sized asteroid ever seen before the actual pass itself.

However, let’s again be very clear: it will miss. In astronomical terms, 27,000 km is pretty close, but in real human terms it’s a clean miss.

[UPDATE: The rt.com article I linked below has changed substantively since I posted my own article here. They have attributed their quotations more clearly, and have taken out most of the more breathless rhetoric. I applaud them for doing so, though I wish they had been more clear in the first place.]

Unsurprisingly, though very irritatingly, I’ve seen a lot of websites writing about this as if the asteroid will hit. For example, rt.com has a very confused article about DA14 claiming it will somehow both miss us and hit us:

The rock’s closest approach to the planet is scheduled for February 15, 2013, when the distance between the planet and space wanderer will be under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). [...] With the asteroid zooming that low, it will be too late to do anything with it besides trying to predict its final destination and the consequences of impact.

Blechh. They write that in a way to make an impact seem likely, but that’s not the case at all! I’ve seen several other websites making similarly contradictory or confused claims (Note:I originally included this SFBay article as an example. It’s not confused, but by using the phrase "potentially fateful day" it struck me as exaggerating the fear). The rt.com article even comes right out and says "NASA confirms… [DA14] has a good chance of colliding with Earth". This is simply not true. I’ll note they don’t actually give a reference to that, so it’s not clear who, if anyone, actually said that, or where they got that information. Either way, it’s wrong.

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The fuzzy future

So we’re safe for now. But what about future passes?

That’s harder to say. Predicting where an asteroid will be at some future time depends on a lot of things, including how good the observations are now and how long we’ve been watching it. When we observe an asteroid with a telescope, we can measure its position, but not with perfect accuracy. The Earth’s atmosphere blurs the image a bit, and other factors make it impossible to get an exact measurement. So we observe it many times, over as long a period as possible, to hammer down those uncertainties.

There will always be some small amount of fuzziness to the orbit of an asteroid, though, and the farther ahead in the future you look the bigger that fuzziness gets. For next year, we know the orbit of DA14 well enough to know it’ll miss, but for future orbits it’s harder to say.

As things stand, right now the JPL website lists the next close pass as February 2020, but we don’t know the orbit well enough at this moment to know how close that pass will be^*. As things stand, the odds of an impact even then are very, very low (like, 1 in 100,000 — less than your odds of getting hit by lightning in your lifetime). We can’t technically rule it out just yet because, again, the orbit isn’t known well enough to look that far into the future. Of course, astronomers are observing the asteroid right now, and will continue to do so. No doubt we’ll have better orbital information pretty soon.

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Keep watching the skies!

So again, because I can’t say this strongly enough: asteroid 2012 DA14 is not an impact threat for February 2013. However, we definitely need to keep our eyes on this guy to see if it poses a threat at some future date. If it does, then you can be sure you’ll be hearing about it from me, and from other websites too. But make sure you find reliable websites. Too many are too ready to breathlessly report this as doomsday when it’s anything but.

So, at least for February 2013, we can safely say:

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^* I’ll note the European NEO-DyS group uses different mathematical techniques, and they don’t even list that date as a near pass. Instead, they say it’ll be six months later, in September. Again, this shows that given our current observations of DA14, predicting its position that far in the future is very uncertain.

Source: Discover Magazine