An asteroid big enough to wipe out a small country is about to pass the Earth.
It has been classed as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) named 2004 XP14 is around half a mile wide and travelling at 17 kilometres per second.
It will not hit Earth but it will pass almost as close as the moon.
The object, discovered in December 2004, is one of a class of "apollo" asteroids whose orbits cross that of the Earth.
Initially there were concerns that the asteroid might collide with the Earth later this century.
However, further analysis of its orbit has ruled this out, at least for the foreseeable future.
Dr David Asher, from the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland said: "At least we knew about this asteroid. We should be more worried about the unknown ones. There are quite a lot of them flying around out there that are still to be discovered.
"Usually an asteroid is just a dot seen through a telescope.
"The real science here is using good radar observations to work out what shape the asteroid is. You might also be able to tell something about its surface."
The asteroid will not be big enough to see with the naked eye, but may be spotted by seasoned observers with moderate-sized telescopes.
source: Asteroid to make flying Earth visit
my firewall shall protect me ;)
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by genryu
