Asteroid flyby ... Record for the closest to Earth

Truck-sized asteroid swept within 2,000 miles on Sunday
Posted by Deborah Byrd in SPACE | August 19, 2020

Asteroid ZTF0DxQ – now officially labeled 2020 QG – now holds the record for the closest flyby of Earth. It swept just 2,000 miles (3,000 km) from Earth’s surface, or about a quarter of the diameter of Earth itself.

https://earthsky.org/upl/2020/08/ast...774873780.jpeg The blue ball in the lower left of this image represents Earth. The curved green arrow represents asteroid 2020 QG, whose orbit was changed by its near-Earth encounter on Sunday. The tick marks on the green line represent 30-minute intervals. You can see that this asteroid was really zooming past! Image via Minor Planet Center.

Newly discovered asteroid ZTF0DxQ – now officially labeled 2020 QG – swept about 1,830 miles (2,900 km) from Earth’s surface on Sunday, August 16, 2020, then zoomed on. It was moving at a speed of about 7.7 miles per second (12.4 km per second) or about 27,600 mph. Because it approached Earth from a sunward direction, it flew past us unseen at 04:08 UTC. Astronomers didn’t detect it until six hours later. This object now holds the record among known asteroids for having swept closest to us without striking us.

Should we be glad it didn’t hit us, or mad it wasn’t detected earlier? Neither one.

And here’s why: relatively speaking, this object is very, very small.

wow that was close !!

I hate to think of a bigger asteroid coming from that same direction and us being blinded by the sun, we wouldn't even know what hit us :eek:

Here comes what should be a close call, but it is a fairly small asteroid.

Oh, great: NASA says an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day
Jay Croft and Melissa Alonso, CNN | 22 Aug 2020


https://cdn.disclose.tv/sites/defaul...?itok=8WPVpTMV

(CNN) Well, 2020 keeps getting better all the time.

Amid a pandemic, civil unrest and a divisive US election season, we now have an asteroid zooming toward us.

On the day before the presidential vote, no less.

Yep. The celestial object known as 2018VP1 is projected to come close to Earth on November 2, according to the Center for Near Earth Objects Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Its diameter is 0.002 km, or about 6.5 feet, according to NASA's data. It was first identified at Palomar Observatory in California in 2018.

NASA says there are three potential impacts, but "based on 21 observations spanning 12.968 days," the agency has determined the asteroid probably -- phew! -- won't have a deep impact, let alone bring Armageddon.

The chance of it hitting us is just 0.41%, data show.

CNN has reached out NASA for any additional or updated information but has not heard back.

oh just great !!

lol... damn !