Asteroid 2005 TG50 passed the Earth at a distance of 6 059 000 km (a little under 16 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon) slightly after 11.20 am GMT on Wednesday 13 November 2013. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us and should it have done so it would have presented little threat. 2005 TG50 is estimated to be between 21 and 65 m in diameter, and an object of this size would be expected to break up in the atmosphere between 22 and 5 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.
2005 TG50 was discovered on 11 October 2005 by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search. The designation 2005 TG50 implies that it was the 1257th asteroid discovered in the first half of October 2005 (period 2005 T).
2005 TG50 has a 324 day orbital period, which takes in to 0.80 AU from the Sun (90% of the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) and out to 1.04 AU (4% further away from the Sun than the Earth). It is classed as an Aten Group Asteroid, a body which spends the majority of its time closer to the Sun than the Earth, but which does pass outside our orbit.
See also Asteroid 2013 UB passes the Earth, Asteroid 2013 TN127 flies past the Earth, Asteroid 2013 TB6 to pass by the Earth on Wednesday 9 October 2013 and Asteroid 2013 SM20 to pass the Earth on Tuesday 8 October 2013.
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