Asteroid 2007 WD5 is poor marksman: Now predicted to totally miss Mars

by William Atkins

Saturday, 12 January 2008

After several updates during the past few weeks concerning the estimated trajectory of asteroid 2007 WD5 as it approaches the planet Mars, scientists are now: “effectively ruling out the possible collision with Mars” on January 30, 2008.

Astronomers have concluded that the asteroid has only a "one in ten thousand" chance of hitting Mars—that is, a 0.01% chance—which pretty much negates any possibility that the asteroid will have a collision of the closest kind with the Red Planet.

Astronomers and researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California), and the Near-Earth Object (NEO) program office within JPL, used data from four observatories collected between January 5th and 8th.

This data confirmed to the scientists that, as of January 9, 2008, the asteroid will most likely pass about 16,155 miles (26,000 kilometers) from the center of the planet at about 4:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST, California time), or 1200 UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) on January 30, 2008.

They are 99.7% confident that the 164 feet (50 meter) wide asteroid will come no closer than 2,485 miles (4,000 kilometers) from the surface of Mars.

The scientists also state that asteroid 2007 WD5 has no possibility of impacting either Mars or Earth during the twenty-first century.

Asteroid 2007 WD5 was discovered by Italian astronomer Andrea Boattini using the Mt. Lemmon 1.5-meter. Boattini is associated with the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey.

The press release from the NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object (NEO) Program, titled “2007 WD5 Mars Collision Effectively Ruled Out - Impact Odds now 1 in 10,000,” is found at: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news156.html.

The NEO page includes information about the history of the asteroid since it was discovered, along with animation and images of the 2007 WD5-Mars encounter.

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