Asteroid 2010 VT11 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 13 550 000
km (35.3 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 9.06% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after
7.45 am
GMT on Sunday 22 October 2017. There was no danger of
the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would have
presented a significant threat. 2010 VY11 has an estimated
equivalent
diameter of 99-310 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object
with
the same volume would be 94-300 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 176-65 300 times as powerful as the
Hiroshima
bomb. Such an impact would result in an impact crater 1-5 km
in
diameter
and devastation on a global scale, as well as climatic effects that
would last years or even decades.
The calculated orbit of 2010 VT11. Minor Planet Center.
2010 VT11 was discovered on 2 November 2010 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Laboratory in Socorro, New Mexico. The designation 2010 VT11 implies that it was the 294th asteroid
(asteroid T11) discovered in the first half of November 2010 (period
2010 V).
2010 VT11 has an 849 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit
tilted at an angle of 2.48° to the plane of the Solar System, which
takes it from 0.68 AU from the Sun (i.e. 68% of he average distance at
which the Earth orbits the Sun and slightly inside the orbit of Venus)
to 2.83 AU from the Sun (i.e. 283% of
the
average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, considerably more
than the 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). This means that the
asteroid has occasional close encounters with the planet Earth, with the
last thought to have occurred in November 2010 and the
next predicted to occur in September 2024. It is also calculated to
have occasional close encounters with the planet Venus, with the last
thought to have happened in October 2010 and the next predicted for August 2031. As
an asteroid probably larger than 150 m in diameter that occasionally
comes within 0.05 AU of the Earth, 2017 SN2 is also
classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.
See also...
Follow Sciency Thoughts on
Facebook.
