Sciency Thoughts: Asteroid 2014 JW24 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2014 JW24 passed by the Earth at a distance of 6 057 000 km (15.75 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon) slightly before 12.35 pm GMT on Sunday 25 May 2014. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would present a realistic threat. 2014 JW24 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 31-99 m (i.e. a spherical object with the same volume would by 31-99 m in diameter) and an object towards the upper end of this range would be predicted to be able to pass through the Earth's atmosphere relatively unscathed, impacting the ground directly, which would result in an explosion over 2200 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb and the formation of a crater over a kilometer in diameter, as well as widespread devastation and climatic effects that would last for several years.

The calculated orbit of 2014 JW24. JPL Small Body Database Browser.

2014 JW24 was discovered on 6 May 2014 by the University of Arizona's Mt. Lemmon Survey at the Steward Observatory on Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson.. The designation 2014 JW24 implies that it was the 623rd asteroid (asteroid W24) discovered in the first half of May 2014 (period 2014 J).

2014 JW24 has an 629 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted to the plain of the Solar System that takes it from 0.996 AU from the Sun (i.e. 99.6% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 1.88 AU from the Sun (i.e. 188% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, considerably more than distance at which the planet Mars orbits the Sun). It is therefore classed as an Apollo Group Asteroid (an asteroid that is on average further from the Sun than the Earth, but which does get closer).

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