An animation of the intersection of Earth’s orbit and that of 2014 JO25, prepared by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a unit of the California Institute of Technology, makes it look like an awfully close call, but the hard facts are more reassuring: At its closest point, the asteroid will be about five times as far from Earth as the moon is, more than 1.75 million kilometers away (1,087,400 miles).
Although the asteroid is expected to be twice as reflective as our moon, it will be difficult to spot in a night sky filled with stars, and certainly not without help. Scientists say the sort of telescope amateur astronomers use should be adequate to pick out the space rock as it whizzes across the sky at 120,000 kilometers per hour (74,500 mph).
EarthSky.org, a website that follows developments in the cosmos and throughout nature in general, has posted an article with detailed information to help sky-watchers find the asteroid on April 19, and for a day or two afterward.
Professional astronomers also will be tracking 2014 JO25 closely. Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, an extremely powerful radio telescope center, will study the asteroid for five days.
After all, it’s not often that something as big as this comes along, even a couple of million kilometers from home. NASA says 2014 JO25 hasn’t been this close to Earth in the past 400 years, and it will be at least 500 years before it comes back for a repeat close encounter with our planet.
Asteroids actually pass close to Earth fairly often, but it’s their size that matters. Asteroid 2017 GM made one of the closest passes by Earth ever seen — 16,000 kilometers (9,900 miles) above sea level — less than a week ago, on April 4. Little notice was taken, however, because that chunk of space rock was about the size of a small car.
Asteroids this size at 4.6 LD aren’t that uncommon.
Why don’t asteroids find Earth attractive?
They come close and yet ...
Maybe it’s our breath.
April 19- Bad Day at Black Rock!
I wonder with each fly by these roving bodies get close to Earth, the gravitational attraction tweaks their course through the solar system, closer and closer to earth. One of these passages they will do a direct hit on Earth. I hope this is happening with other planets, like Jupiter, and they get this asteroid first.
An enormous source of resources that we should be able to tap into.
Wonder if it is Icy, Rocky, Metallic or all of the above.
An object that size is about 150 million tons of water, or 3 times that if of stone, 7 times that if of iron.
My aunt suffered from asteroids for years.
“Climate change” and Algore are sucking it in. We’re doomed.
I tried to tell y’all that the Cubs winning the World Series was a sign of the End Times.
That's what they always say. Sorry, the Ninth Circuit Court has declared the laws of physics not to be applicable in this case. So now what are we going to do?
So Michelle Obama is coming in for a landing? ;-P