Sunday 3 April 2016

Asteroid 2016 FA14 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2016 FA14 passed by the Earth at a distance of 634 900 km (1.65 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 0.44% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightlyafter 6.20 am GMT on Monday 28 March 2016. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented no threat. 2016 FA14 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 explode in an airburst (an explosion caused by superheating from friction with the Earth's atmosphere, which is greater than that caused by simply falling, due to the orbital momentum of the asteroid) in the atmosphere 36-20 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.

  The calculated orbit of  2016 FA14JPL Small Body Database.

2016 FA14 was discovered on 31 March 2016 (three days after its closest approach to the Earth) by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Space Surveillance Telescope. The designation 2015 FA14implies that it was the 351st asteroid (asteroid A14) discovered in the second half of March 2016 (period 2016 F).

2016 FA14 has a 885 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted at an angle of 4.26° to the plane of the Solar System, that takes it from 0.75 AU from the Sun (i.e. 75% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 2.86 AU from the Sun (i.e, 286% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, nearly twice 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...

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http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/asteroid-2016-en156-passes-earth.htmlAsteroid 2016 EN156 passes the Earth.  Asteroid 2016 EN156 passed by the Earth at a distance of 601 800 km (1.57 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 0.40% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 6.25 am GMT on Saturday 19...



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