Asteroid 2018 VC passed by the Earth at a distance of about 552 300
km (1.44 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or
0.37% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 9.50 pm
GMT on Sunday 28 October 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 VC has an estimated
equivalent
diameter of 9-30 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object
with
the same volume would be 9-30 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 33 and 16 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material
reaching the Earth's surface.
The calculated orbit of 2018 VC. Minor Planet Center.
2018 VC was discovered on 1 November 2018 (four days after its closest approach to the Earth) by the
University of Arizona's Mt. Lemmon Survey at the Steward Observatory on Mount
Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. The designation 2018 VC
implies that the asteroid was the third object (object C) discovered in the first half of November 2018 (period 2018 V).
2018 VC
has an 437 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit
tilted at an angle of 3.70° to the plane of the Solar System, which
takes it from 0.94 AU from the Sun (i.e. 94% of he average distance at
which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 1.32 AU from the Sun (i.e. 132% 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). As such the asteroid has
occasional close encounters with the planet Earth, which it last came
close to in April 2010, and is expected to do so again in June 2024.
See also...
Follow Sciency Thoughts on Facebook.
