Saturday 19 March 2016

Asteroid 2016 FC1 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2016 FC1 passed by the Earth at a distance of 167 800 km (0.44 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 0.11% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun; 147 800 km above the orbit at which the satellites supporting GPS systems operate), slightly before 2.30 pm GMT on Monday 14 March 2016. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented only a minor threat. 2016 FC1 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 2-9 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 2-9 m in diameter), and an object of this size would be expected to explode in an airburst (an explosion caused by superheating from friction with the Earth's atmosphere, which is greater than that caused by simply falling, due to the orbital momentum of the asteroid) in the atmosphere more than 32 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.

 The calculated orbit of  2016 FC1JPL Small Body Database.

2016 FC1 was discovered on 16 March 2016 (two days after its closest approach to the Earth) by the University of Arizona's Mt. Lemmon Survey at the Steward Observatory on Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. The designation 2016 FC1 implies that the asteroid was the 28th object (object C1) discovered in the second half of March 2016 (period 2016 F).

2016 FC1 has a 1080 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted at an angle of 1.24° to the plane of the Solar System that takes it from 0.74 AU from the Sun (i.e. 74% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, slightly outside the orbit of Venus) to 3.38 AU from the Sun (i.e. 338% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, considerably more than twice the distance at which Mars orbits the Sun). It is therefore classed as an Apollo Group Asteroid (an asteroid that is on average further from the Sun than the Earth, but which does get closer). 2015 XE also has occasional close encounters with the planet Mars, with the next predicted in July 2039. 

See also...

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http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/asteroid-2007-dm41-passes-earth.htmlAsteroid 2007 DM41 passes the Earth.  Asteroid 2007 DM41 passed by the Earth at a distance of 12 400 000 km (32.3 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 8.29% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 12.10 pm GMT on Tuesday 23...
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/asteroid-457662-2009-dz-passes-earth.htmlAsteroid (457662) 2009 DZ passes the Earth. Asteroid (457662) 2009 DZ passed by the Earth at a distance of 12 510 000 km (32.5 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 8.36% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 2.35 am GMT on Tuesday 23...
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