Asteroid 2014 QL365 passed by the Earth at a distance of 2 123 000 km (5.52 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 1.4% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 2.10 pm GMT on Monday 1 September 2014. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented only a minor threat. 2014 QL365 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 7-23 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 7-23 m in diameter), and an object of this size would be expected to break up in the atmosphere between 36 and 20 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.
The calculated orbit of 2014 QL365. JPL Small Body Database Browser.
2014 QL365 was discovered on 31 August 2014 (the day before its closest approach to the Earth) by the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey, which is located in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. The designation 2014 QL365 implies that it was the 9136th asteroid (asteroid L365) discovered in the second half of August 2014 (period 2014 Q).
2014 QL365 has a 700 day year orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted at an angle of 8.5° to the plane of the Solar System, which takes it from 0.98 AU from the Sun (i.e. 98% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 2.10 AU from the Sun (i.e. 210% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, considerably more than the 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). This means that close encounters between 2014 QL365 and the Earth are fairly common, with the last thought to have occurred in November 2012 next one predicted for November 2060. The asteroid also has fairly frequent close encounters with the planet Mars, with the last thought to have occurred in October 1951, and the next predicted for December 2043.
See also...
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