Close asteroid flyby

[defacto7]

On Jan. 8th, asteroid 2019 AS5 flew past Earth only 8600 km above our planet's surface. Nine hours after the flyby, it was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Survey telescope in Arizona. The asteroid was closer to our planet than many satellites. This diagram shows 2019 AS5 inside the orbits of GPS and other geosynchronous satellites:



If the 1 to 2 meter-wide space rock had hit Earth (and it almost did) it would have caused a brilliant fireball in the atmosphere with sonic booms and scattered meteorites on the ground--but no serious damage.

Earth's gravity significantly bent the asteroid's orbit during the flyby. To illustrate this effect, the Minor Planet Center has created an interactive 3D diagram of the encounter, which flung 2019 AS5 away from our planet after its brief visit.

Spaceweather.com

[Harker]

1. Thanks for this post.

Carl Sagan changed my trajectory when he told me that I'm star stuff.

[krispos42]

2. I read two of his books in recent months

"The demon haunted world" and "billions and billions".

In many instances it's like he was a prophet. He wrote about the environmental catastrophe and the dumbing down of our civilization and this is 20-25 years before Fanta Menace. It makes me very worried.

[Harker]

4. I recently decided to read "Demon Haunted World."

His eloquence and earnestness are inspirational, and a dose of his writings would do me some good, I think.

[LakeSuperiorView]

3. Looks like it's new orbit is signifcantly more aligned with Earth's orbit.

Unless it got a significant change in speed from the flyby, it will be back sometime in the future. That could be in millions of years, however.