Asteroid 2014 MG55 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 10 080 000 km (26.22 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 6.7% of the average distance between the Earth an the Sun), slightly after 12.25 pm GMT on Friday 25 July 2014. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would have presented a serious threat. 2014 MG55 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 28-90 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 28-90 m in diameter), and an object towards the upper end of this range would be predicted to be capable of passing through the Earth's atmosphere relatively intact, impacting the ground with an energy equivalent to about 35 megatons of TNT (roughly 2000 times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb). Such an event would result in a crater about 1 across, cause devastation on a wide scale and would have the potential to affect the climate globally for years after the impact event.
The calculated orbit of 2014 MG55. JPL Small Body Database Browser.
2014 MJ55 was discovered on 27 June 2014 (28 days before its closest approach to the Earth) by the University of Hawaii's PANSTARRS telescope on Mount Haleakala on Maui. The designation 2014 MG55 implies that it was the 1382nd asteroid (asteroid G55) discovered in the second half of June 2014 (period 2014 M).
While 2014 MG55 occasionally comes near to the Earth, it does not actually cross our orbital path. It has an elliptical 1027 day orbit, at an angle of 9.8° to the plane of the Solar System, that takes it from 1.07 AU from the Sun (1.07 times the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun), slightly outside our orbit, to 2.91 AU from the Sun, (2.91 times the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, almost twice the distance at which the planet Mars orbits the Sun). As a Near Earth Object that remains strictly outside the orbit of the Earth it is classed as an Amor Family Asteroid.
See also...
Asteroid 2014 OP2 passes the Earth.Asteroid 2014 OP2 passed by the Earth at a distance of 199 700 km (0.52 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon), at about 8.35 am GMT on Thursday 24 July 2014. There was no...
Asteroid 2014 MJ55 passes the Earth.Asteroid 2014 MJ55 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 11 080 000 km (28.83 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 7.4% of the average distance between the Earth and...
Asteroid 2014 MA6 passes the Earth.Asteroid 2014 MA6 passed by the Earth at a distance of 7 275 000 km (18.93 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 4.9% of the average distance between the Earth and the...
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