Coming this month: Closest Known Approach by a Large Asteroid
2005 YU-55 is going to make a very close approach to the Earth on the night of November 8, 2011. At that time, its distance from Earth will be just under nine-tenths of the moon's distance away from us. 2005 YU-55 cannot hit Earth at least over the interval that we can compute the motion reliably which extends for several hundred years.
It's going to be moving very rapidly as it traverses the sky near the Earth on November 7, 8, 9 and 10th. In affect it'll be moving straight at us from one direction and then it will go whizzing by and straight away from us in the other direction. So its motion across the sky will be close to degrees over the course of less than two days. It made a close approach to Earth about eighteen months ago in April of 2010. Colleagues of ours at Arecibo Observatory where able to observe this asteroid using the radar facility at Arecibo and they were able to obtain radar images that showed that this object is about 400 meters across. On November 8, 9, 10 we... more
It's going to be moving very rapidly as it traverses the sky near the Earth on November 7, 8, 9 and 10th. In affect it'll be moving straight at us from one direction and then it will go whizzing by and straight away from us in the other direction. So its motion across the sky will be close to degrees over the course of less than two days. It made a close approach to Earth about eighteen months ago in April of 2010. Colleagues of ours at Arecibo Observatory where able to observe this asteroid using the radar facility at Arecibo and they were able to obtain radar images that showed that this object is about 400 meters across. On November 8, 9, 10 we... more
