This area will cover relevant news of the threat to the planet from Near Earth Objects (NEOs) including concepts and designs for mitigation. All opinions are those of the author.

29 May 2012

Asteroid 2012 KT42: Very close approach to Earth today (29 May 2012) of ~5 meter NEO

Asteroid 2012 KT42

Discovery images of asteroid 2012 KT42. Credit: Catalina Sky Survey/Mt. Lemmon Observatory

Map of Transit
From SpaceWeather.com...

Newly-discovered asteroid 2012 KT42 is flying past Earth today (May 29th) only ~14,000 km above the planet's surface. This means 2012 KT42 will actually fly inside the Clark Belt of geosynchronous satellites. The 3- to 10-meter wide asteroid ranks # 6 on the top 20 list of closest-approachers to Earth. According to the asteroid's orbit, there is no danger of a collision. Even if it did hit, this space rock is too small to cause significant damage. It would likely disintegrate almost entirely in the atmosphere, peppering the ground below with relatively small meteorites.

Note: The close pass will occur at about 07:00 UTC (03:00 EDT, midnight PDT in the US) on May 29

Link: Universe Today

Link: Images from Flyby (courtesy of spaceweather.com)

Link: 2012 KT42 Page from JPL

Link: Blog post ( Remanzacco Observatory in Italy)

Link: Minor Planet Center on 2012 KT42

Link: Wikipedia page
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