Posted on 14th Feb 2013
45 meter Asteroid to Skirt Very Near Earth on Feb 15
Our home planet is due for a record
setting space encounter on Friday (Feb. 15) of this week, when a space
rock roughly half a football field wide skirts very close by Earth at
break neck speed and well inside the plethora of hugely expensive
communications and weather satellites that ring around us in
geosynchronous orbit.
“There is no possibility of an Earth
impact” by the Near Earth Asteroid (NEO) known as 2012 DA 14, said Don
Yeomans, NASA’s foremost asteroid expert at a media briefing. Well
that’s good news for us – but a little late for the dinosaurs.
At its closest approach in less than 4
days, the 45 meter (150 feet) wide Asteroid 2012 DA14 will zoom by
within an altitude of 27,700 kilometers (17,200 miles). That is some
8000 km (5000 miles) inside the ring of geosynchronous satellites, but
far above most Earth orbiting satellites, including the 6 person crew
currently working aboard the International Space Station.
Although the likelihood of a satellite
collision is extremely remote, NASA is actively working with satellite
providers to inform them of the space rocks path.
The razor thin close shave takes place
at about 2:24 p.m. EST (11:24 a.m. PST and 1924 UTC) as the asteroid
passes swiftly by at a speed of about 7.8 kilometers per second (17,400
MPH)- or about 8 times the speed of a rifle bullet. For some
perspective, it will be only about 1/13th of the distance to the moon at
its closest.
No known asteroid has ever passed so near to Earth.
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