Saturday 3 September 2016

Asteroid (281375) 2008 JV19 passes the Earth.

Asteroid  (281375) 2008 JV19 passed by the Earth at a distance of 17 640 000 km (45.9 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 11.8% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 7.20 am GMT on Tuesday 30 August 2016. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented a considerable threat. (281375) 2008 JV19 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 130-410 m (i.e. a spherical body with the same mass would be 130-410 m in diameter), and an asteroid of this size would be expected to pass through the atmosphere and directly impact the ground with a force of 32-176 000 megatons (1900-2350 times the explosive energy of the Hiroshima bomb), causing devastation over a wide area and creating a crater roughly 2-7 km across, and resulting in global climatic problems that could last for decades or even centuries.

 The calculated orbit of (281375) 2008 JV19JPL Small Body Database.

(281375) 2008 JV19 was discovered on 8 May 2008 by the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey, which is located in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. The designation 2008 JV19 implies that it was the 496th asteroid (asteroid V19) discovered in the first half of May 2008 (period 2008 J), while the designation 281375 implies that it was 281 375th asteroid ever discovered (asteroids are not given this longer designation immediately to avoid naming double or false sightings).

(281375) 2008 JV19  has a 358 day orbital period, with an elliptical orbit tilted at an angle of 7.23° to the plain of the Solar System which takes in to 0.74 AU from the Sun (74% of the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun and slightly outside the orbit of the planet Venus) and out to 1.23 AU (23% further away from the Sun than the Earth). This means that close encounters between the asteroid and Earth are fairly common, with the last thought to have happened in September 2015 and the next predicted in August 2017. (281375) 2008 JV19  also has frequent close encounters with the planet Venus, with the last thought to have occurred in March 2004 and the next predicted for September 2025. Although it does cross the Earth's orbit and is briefly further from the Sun on each cycle, (281375) 2008 JV19 spends most of its time closer to the Sun than we are, and is therefore classified as an Aten Group Asteroid. As an asteroid possibly larger than 150 m in diameter that occasionally comes within 0.05 AU of the Earth, (281375) 2008 JV19 is also classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.
See also...
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http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/asteroid-2016-ng33-passes-earth.htmlAsteroid 2016 NG33 passes the Earth.      2016 NG33 passed by the Earth at a distance of 18 070 000 km (47 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 12% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), at about 2.50 am GMT on Monday 8 August 2016. There...
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