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Asteroid 2007 WD5 passes safely by Mars; 2007 TU24 does same with Earth

by William Atkins

Monday, 04 February 2008

Page 2 of 2

The Earth also had a near-miss of its own with an asteroid. The 800-foot (250-kilometer) Asteroid 2007 TU24 flew by Earth on Tuesday, January 29, 2008, one day before the Martian encounter. Its closest approach was at 3:33 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) (833 UTC).

The asteroid’s nearest approach to Earth was about 334,000 miles (537,500) kilometers—about 1.4 times the distance between the Moon and Earth.

Asteroid 2007 TU24 is considered a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) by the NEO because it comes within less than 0.05 AU (astronomical unit) from Earth (where one AU is the average distance between Earth and the Sun, about 93 million miles [150 million kilometers]) and has a diameter of at least 493 feet (150 meters).

The distance of 0.05 AU is about 4.65 million miles (7.5 million kilometers).

Astronomers that track such PHAs state that one would hit Earth, on average, once every ten thousand years or so. Such an impact has the potential to cause major disasters on Earth.

If impacting the ocean, which is most likely, it would trigger a major tsunami. If hitting on land, which is much less likely, it could cause devastating consequences for the impact and near-impact areas.

Over 900 PHAs are tracked by NASA, however, many more are still undiscovered as they travel in our solar system.

ITWire also followed the asteroid at:

January 26, 2008, “Asteroid 2007 TU24 to pass near Earth on January 29-30”

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