Whew..Closest Asteroid Ever Recorded Buzzed Earth Feb. 4, 2011.

Luckily it was only a meter in size.The scary thing...

Asteroid 2011 CQ1 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on February 4 and made a record close Earth approach 14 hours later on February 4 at 19:39 UT (14:39 EST).

It passed within 5480km. of Earth. So close it changed the flight path by 60 degrees when it passed!!!

It passed to within 0.85 Earth radii (5480 km) of the Earth's surface over a region in the mid-Pacific. This object, only about one meter in diameter, is the closest non-impacting object in our asteroid catalog to date. Prior to the Earth close approach, this object was in a so-called Apollo-class orbit that was mostly outside the Earth's orbit.

Following the close approach, the Earth's gravitational attraction modified the object's orbit to an Aten-class orbit where the asteroid spends almost all of its time inside the Earth's orbit. As is evident from the diagram, the close Earth approach changed the asteroid's flight path by about 60 degrees. Because of their small size, object's of this size are difficult to discover but there is likely to be nearly a billion objects of this size and larger in near-Earth space and one would expect one to strike Earth's atmosphere every few weeks on average. Upon striking the atmosphere, small objects of this size create visually impressive fireball events but only rarely do even a few small fragments reach the ground.

neo.jpl.nasa.gov

To put it into perspective. The last Apollo Class Asteroid to buzz earth.....2010 AL30

On January 13, 2010 at 1246 UT it passed at about 122,000 km (76,000 mi), about 1/3 of the distance from the Earth to the Moon (or 0.33 LD). It is approximately 10–15 m (33–49 ft) wide.

If 2010 AL30 had entered the Earth's atmosphere, it would have created an air burst equivalent to between 50 kT and 100 kT (kilotons of TNT). The Nagasaki "Fat Man" atom bomb had a yield between 13-18kT.[4]

If one of these BIG rocks has our name on it, were toast.



14 hours to prepare for doom in this case.

Whew....

The more big rocks hit home, the less are around to follow up, unless something from a different system by a freak chance enters our system, but assuming it departs now, thats a problem of future earth.

THAT is close!

We won't dodge them all, and eventually we'll take hits.

Could be a real game-changer.

reply to post by timewalker


WOW not funny at all, this insane, we and our life giver the sun have been getting pummeled recently. The Sun itself has been getting hit from the same direction for months.

The scariest thing about these close passes are the facts that we dont hear about them until afterwards. I wish we could hear about them as they are coming at us....

More reason to hate space with a passion, space you are on my haters list permanently! I blame you for making me change my depends every day, I blame you for amazing me with your mysterious clouds, and then throwing rocks at me for saying it's pretty. It is like a bad ex wife, try to compliment it and bam get a storm of meteors or asteroids in this case trying to kill you. Oh well back to beer fest. HUZZAH!

The pieces are breaking off a larger body

reply to post by kennylee
If it were an extinction level event, what would you do with 14 hours?

If you could get through the chaos in the streets to even see your family?


Maybe it's better that you do not know you are going to die? A whole lot less stressful that's for sure.

reply to post by timewalker


I wondered why no one had posted this already, I read about it the other day when it took place, a pretty close brush for sure! On one site I read that astronomers were literally holding their breath as it was bounced off our atmostphere and into another direction, it sounded as though if that hadn't happened earth would have def been hit! Thanks for posting.

there was plenty of warning about that asteroid...spaceweather.com had it tracked for at least a week giving size, distance, trajectory, all that stuff backyard astronomers love..

2011 CQ1 is tiny by asteroid standards, only about 6.5 to 10 feet across......

reply to post by timewalker


Tonight (April 15th 2011) a 50 meter (164 feet) asteroid will make a close earth fly by at 0.0033 AU = 312445 miles from Earth or 502832 km. It will be approximately 0.0015 AU from the Moon. It is elongated and spinning which causes it to flash like a strobe light in amateur telescopes. The close encounter on February 4th 2011 was only 1 meter (3.28 feet) and according to spaceweather.com... it was 0.00024 AU = 36036 km = 22392.229 miles but it may have even been closer not sure? You can read about this on spaceweather.com...