Asteroid (8014) 1990 MF passed by the Earth at a distance of about 8 182 000
km (21.3 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 5.47% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before
11.10 pm
GMT on Thursday 23 July 2020. There was no danger of
the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would not have
presented a significant threat. (8014) 1990 MF has an estimated
equivalent
diameter of 340-1100 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object
with
the same volume would be 340-1100 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 90 000-1 350 000 times as powerful as the
Hiroshima
bomb. Such an impact would result in an impact crater roughly 5-15 km
in
diameter
and devastation on a global scale, as well as climatic effects that
would last decades or even centuries.
The orbit of (8014) 1990 MF, and its current position. JPL Small Body Database.
(8014) 1990 MF was discovered on 26 June 1990 (the day of its closest approach to the Earth) by the Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory in California. The
designation 1990 MF implies that it was the sixth asteroid (asteroid W -
in numbering asteroids the letters A-Y, excluding I, are assigned
numbers from 1 to 24, with a number added to the end each time the
alphabet is ended, so that A = 1, A1 = 25, A2 = 49, etc., which means that F = 6)
discovered in the Second half of June 1990 (period 1990 M - the
year being split into 24 half-months represented by the letters A-Y, with I being excluded), while
the designation 8014 implies that it was 8014th asteroid ever
discovered (asteroids are not given this longer designation immediately
to avoid naming double or false sightings).
(8014) 1990 MF has a 843 day (2.31 year) orbital period, with an elliptical
orbit tilted at
an angle of 1.87° to the plain of the Solar System which takes in to
0.95 AU from the Sun (95% of the distance at which the Earth orbits the
Sun) and out to 2.54 AU (254% of the distance at which the Earth orbits
the Sun, and comsiderably outside the orbit of the planet Mars).
This means that close
encounters between the asteroid and Earth are fairly common, with the
last thought to have happened in Octpber 2013 and the next predicted
in June 2027. 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). As
an asteroid probably larger than 150 m in diameter that occasionally
comes within 0.05 AU of the Earth,(8014) 1990 MF is also classified
as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. (8014) 1990 MF also
has occasional close encounters with the planets Mars, which it last
came close to in September 2008 and is next predicted to
pass in September 2041.
See also...
