Asteroid
2016 VQ passed by the Earth at a distance of 871 600 km (2.53 times the
average distance between the Earth and the Moon, 0.65% of the average
distance
between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 10.20 am GMT on Friday 11
November 2016. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though
had it
done so it would have presented no threat. 2016 VQ has an estimated
equivalent diameter of 12-38 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical
object
with the same volume would be 12-38 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 between 30 and 12 km above the ground, with only
fragmentary
material reaching the Earth's surface.
The calculated orbit of 2016 VQ. Minor Planet Center.
2016 VQ was discovered on 2 November 2016 (nine days after 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 2016 VQ
implies that the asteroid was the 16th object (object Q) discovered in the first half of November 2016 (period 2016 V).
2016 VQ is calculated to have a 1424 day orbital
period and an elliptical orbit tilted at an angle of 2.66° to the plain of the
Solar System that takes it from 0.85 AU from the Sun (i.e. 85% of the average
distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 4.11 AU from the Sun (i.e. 411%
of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, more than 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...
