Sciency Thoughts: Asteroid 2014 KB46 passes the Earth.

Monday, 9 June 2014

Asteroid 2014 KB46 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2014 KB46 passed by the Earth at a distance of 8 017 000 km (20.88 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon), slightly after 4.30 am GMT on Tuesday 3 June 2013. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done son it would have presented only a minor threat. 2014 KB46 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 21-65 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 21-65 m in diameter), and an object of this size would be expected to break up in the atmosphere between 22 and 4 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface (though being directly under an object towards the larger end of this range would probably be fairly unpleasant.

The calculated orbit of 2014 KB46. JPL Small Body Database Browser.

2014 KB46 was discovered on 25 May 2014 (nine days before its closest approach to the Earth) by the University of Hawaii's PANSTARRS telescope on Mount Haleakala on Maui. The designation 2014 KB46 implies that it was the 1152nd asteroid (asteroid B46) discovered in the second half of May 2014 (period 2014 K).

While 2014 KB46 occasionally comes near to the Earth, it does not actually cross our orbital path. It has an elliptical 1061 day orbit, that takes it from 1.05 AU from the Sun (1.05 times the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun), slightly outside our orbit, to 3.02 AU from the Sun, (3.02 times the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, slightly more than twice the distance at which the planet Mars orbits the Sun). As a Near Earth Object that remains strictly outside the orbit of the Earth it is classed as an Amor Family Asteroid.

See also...

Asteroid 2006 XD2 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2006 XD2 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 17 460 000 km (45.42 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon), slightly after 8.20 pm GMT on Sunday 1 June 2014. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would have presented a considerable threat. 2006 XD2 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 120-380 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 120-380 m in...