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

William Atkins
Sunday, 03 February 2008 19:47

Science - Space

Going from a 3.6% chance to a zero chance of hitting Mars, Asteroid 2007 WD5 raced by the Red Planet without a collision, coming within about 13,700 miles of the planet. Also, Asteroid 2007 TU24 passed by Earth, a day earlier, on January 29, 2008, without any problems.      

As astronomers got more accurate data on Asteroid 2007 WD5, they found it had less and less chance of hitting the planet Mars. Eventually, the 164-foot (50-meter) Asteroid 2007 WD5 had literally no chance of hitting the planet.

Astronomers with NASA’s Near-Earth Object (NEO) program finally concluded about twenty days before the close encounter that there was no chance of a collision. The near-miss, the asteroid's closest approach to Mars, happened at about 5:56 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) (1056 UTC) on Wednesday, January 30, 2008, when it came within 13,700 miles (22,075 kilometers) of the planet.

To concert this time to your local time, go to TimeZoneConverter.com.

At the time of the close encounter, 2007 WD5 was traveling at a speed of about 27,900 miles (44,900 kilometers) per hour.

Astronomers at the NEO program, which is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California) have stated that Mars gets hit by one of these objects every one thousand years or so. Near-misses occur about ten or twenty years apart.

These same astronomers were actually hoping that 2007 WD5 would hit Mars so they could observe the impact in order to learn more about such collisions. An actual collision between an asteroid and a rocky planet has never before been directly observed by astronomers.

ITWire followed the course of 2007 WD5 in several articles as astronomers updated their estimates on the possibility of the collision between the asteroid and the planet:

December 22, 2007, “Place your bets: Will asteroid hit Mars in January?” (1-in-75 chance)

December 30, 2007: “Possibility of asteroid hitting Mars upped to 1 out of 25”

January 5, 2008, “Update on asteroid hitting Mars: Now 1-in-28”

January 10, “Another update: asteroid has only 1-in-40 chance (2.5%) of hitting Mars”

January 12, “Asteroid 2007 WD5 is poor marksman: Now predicted to totally miss Mars”

And, here is what happened with the potentially dangerous Asteroid 2007 TU24 as it flew toward Earth. Please read on.