Asteroid (438955) 2010 LN14 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 9 025 000
km (23.5 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 6.03% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 10.40 pm
GMT on Saturday 14 January 2017. There was no danger of
the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would have
presented a considerable threat. (438955) 2010 LN14 has an estimated
equivalent
diameter of 110-360 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with
the same volume would be 110-360 m in diameter), and an object of this
size would be predicted to be capable of passing through the Earth's
atmosphere relatively intact, impacting the ground directly with an
explosion that would be 600-118 000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima
bomb. Such an impact would result in an impact crater 1.5-5 km in
diameter
and devastation on a global scale, as well as climatic effects that
would last decades or even centuries.
The calculated orbit of (438955) 2010 LN14. Minor Planet Center.
(438955) 2010 LN14 was discovered on 6 June 2010 by the Tenegra II Telescope at Tenegra Observatries in Arizona. The designation 2010 LN14
implies that the asteroid was the 363rd object (object N14) discovered in the first half of June 2010 (period 2010 L),
while the longer designation (438955 indicates that it was the 438 955th asteroid discovered
overall (asteroids are not given this longer designation immediately, to
ensure that numbered objects are genuine asteroids that have not been
previously described).
(438955) 2010 LN14 has a 453 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit
tilted at an angle of 1.49° to the plane of the Solar System, which
takes it from 0.61 AU from the Sun (i.e. 61% of he average distance at
which the Earth orbits the Sun, less than the distance at which the planet
Venus orbits the Sun) to 1.70 AU from the Sun (i.e. 170% of the
average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, and considerably
outside the orbit of the planet Mars). 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 the asteroid and Earth are extremely common, with the
last having occurred in June 2015 and the next predicted
in June 2020 As an asteroid probably larger than 150 m in diameter
that occasionally comes within 0.05 AU of the Earth, (438955) 2010 LN14 is also
classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.
(438955) 2010 LN14 also
has frequent close encounters with the planets Venus, which it is
thought to have last passed in April 1962, and is next predicted to
pass in April 2019, and Mars which it last came close to in January 1973 and
is next predicted to pass in July 2023). Asteroids
which make close passes to multiple planets are considered to be in
unstable orbits, and are often eventually knocked out of these orbits by
these encounters, either being knocked onto a new, more stable orbit,
dropped into the Sun, knocked out of the Solar System or occasionally
colliding with a planet.
See also...
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