Asteroid 2014 WD497 passed by the Earth at a distance of 6 144 000 km
(15.95 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 4.1 %
of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), at about 9.50 pm GMT on Monday 15 December 2014. There was no danger of
the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented
only a minor threat. 2014 WD497 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 17-54 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same
volume would be 17-54 m in diameter), and an object of this size would
be expected to break up in the atmosphere between 24 and 8 km above the
ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.
The calculated orbit of 2014 WD497. JPL Small Body Database Browser.
2014 WD497 was discovered on 28 November 2014 (seventeen days before its closest approach to the Earth) 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 WD497 implies that it was the 12 447th asteroid (asteroid D497 ) discovered in the second half of November 2014 (period 2014 W).
2014 WD497 has a 931 day year orbital period and an eccentric
orbit tilted at an angle of 5.1° to the plane of the Solar System, which
takes it from 0.99 AU from the Sun (i.e. 99% of the average distance at
which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 2.74 AU from the Sun (i.e. 274% 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).
See also...
Asteroid 2014 WY365 passed by the Earth at a distance of 3 381 000 km
(8.81 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 2.3 %
of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun)...
Asteroid 2014 WZ120 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 7 019 000
km (18.26 times the average distance between the Earth and the
Moon, or 4.7% of the average distance between the Sun and...
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