Just when you thought you could sleep at night...

An asteroid more than a mile wide will pass by Earth on Wednesday while travelling at a speed of about 19,000 miles (30,578km) an hour.

The space rock, known as (52768) 1998 OR2, is expected to make its closest approach at 10.56am BST, when it will be just 3.9m miles (6.3m km) away – about 16 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Although the asteroid is classified as a potentially hazardous object (PHO), scientists have said it will not pose a danger to the planet.

Dr Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Australian National University, said: “This asteroid poses no danger to the Earth and will not hit – it is one catastrophe we won’t have. While it is big, it is still smaller than the asteroid that impacted the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.”

Source:  https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/29/asteroid-passing-earth-1998-or2-wednesday-near-4m-miles-face-mask-fly-by

3 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

While it is big, it is still smaller than the asteroid that impacted the Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs.

Well, some of the dinosaurs.

At 30,578 km/h even a collision with such a smallish size would pose concern. Since there apparently exists a good estimate of the mass of the asteroid that hit 65M years ago, is there also a good estimate of its velocity? After all the energy depends only linearly on mass, but quadratically on speed.

12 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

An asteroid more than a mile wide will pass by Earth  ... about 16 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon

"Pass by"

Right

26 minutes ago, Strange said:

"Pass by"

Right

Pass by, relative to the rest of the galaxy? Sure, we'd practically have to duck. But if you were to tell a friend you were going to "pass by" his house later, and then only got within four million miles, well....

48 minutes ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Just when you thought you could sleep at night...

Someone, said "kruger"...

Just for the record, the Wikipedia article on the beast. It has a neat animation constructed from the radar observations by Arecibo.

The closest known approach to Apophis will occur on April 13, 2029, when the asteroid is about 31,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface. Distance, astronomically, a hair's breadth, five times the radius of the Earth, ten times closer than the Moon, and even closer than some artificial satellites.

On 1/28/2021 at 1:40 AM, cannongray said:

The closest known approach to Apophis will occur on April 13, 2029, when the asteroid is about 31,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface. Distance, astronomically, a hair's breadth, five times the radius of the Earth, ten times closer than the Moon, and even closer than some artificial satellites.

!

Moderator Note

Please don't copy someone else's work and paste it here as your own. That's plagiarism, and it's against our rules.

 

!

Moderator Note

Above non-attributed quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

 

On 4/29/2020 at 4:48 PM, taeto said:

Since there apparently exists a good estimate of the mass of the asteroid that hit 65M years ago, is there also a good estimate of its velocity? After all the energy depends only linearly on mass, but quadratically on speed.

From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_impactor - first paragraph) the estimation is about 20km/s. But I am suspicious with the wikipedia  as their size estimation is very strange (11 to 81 km - wide range, but precise limits), while velocity and angle are given without ranges.