Asteroid 2018 DU passed by the Earth at a distance of about 284 000
km (0.74 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or
0.19% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 6.20 pm
GMT on Sunday 25 February 2018. There was no danger of
the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would not have
presented a significant threat. 2018 DU has an estimated
equivalent
diameter of 4-13 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object
with
the same volume would be 4-13 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 43 and 27 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material
reaching the Earth's surface.
120 second image of 2018 DU taken with the TENEGRA III Telescope at he Tenegra Observatory in Arizona on 25 February 2018. The longer lines are stars, their elongation
being caused by the telescope tracking the asteroid over the length of
the exposure. Gianluca Masi/Virtual Telescope/Michael Swartze/Tenegra Observatory.
2018 DU was discovered on 23 February 2018 (two days before its closest approach to the Earth) by the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey,
which is located in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. The
designation 2018 DU implies that it was the 20th asteroid (asteroid U)
discovered in the second half of February 2018 (period 2018 D).
The calculated orbit of 2018 DU. Minor Planet Center.
2018
DU has a 465 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit
tilted at an angle of 3.20° to the plane of the Solar System, which
takes it from 0.96 AU from the Sun (i.e. 96% of he average distance at
which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 1.38 AU from the Sun (i.e. 138% of
the
average distance at which the Earth 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). This means that 2018 DU has
occasional close encounters with the Earth, with the last having
happened in June 2014 and the next predicted for June this year. The
asteroid also has occasional close encounters with the planet Mars, with
the next predicted for October this year.
See also...
Follow Sciency Thoughts on Facebook.
