Asteroid 2014 KQ75 passed by the Earth at a distance of 1 149 000 km (2.98 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon), slightly after 5.00 am GMT on Sunday 1 June 2014. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, and had it done so it would have presented only a limited risk. Asteroid 2014 KQ75 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 16-52 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical body with the same volume would be 16-52 m in diameter, and an object of this size would be expected to break up in the Earth's atmosphere between 26 and 8 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the planet's surface.
The calculated orbit of 2014 KQ75. JPL Small Body Database Browser.
2014 KQ75 was discovered on 28 May 2014 (four days before its closest approach to the Earth) by the European Space Agency's Optical Ground Station in Tenerife. The designation 2014 KQ75 implies that it was the 1892nd asteroid (asteroid Q75) discovered in the second half of May 2014 (period 2014 K).
2014 KQ75 has an 3.25 year orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted to the plane of the Solar System that takes it from 0.73 AU from the Sun (i.e. 73% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 3.65 AU from the Sun (i.e. 365% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, considerably more than twice 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...
Asteroid 2014 KM22 passes by the Earth at a distance of 7 187 000 km (18.62 times the average distance between the Earth and the...
Asteroid 2014 KC45 passed by the Earth at a distance of 88 260 km (23% of the distance between the Earth and the Moon), at about 8.10...
Asteroid 2014 JE15 passed by the Earth at a distance of 15 810 000 km (over 40 times the average distance between the Earth and the...
Follow Sciency Thoughts on Facebook.
