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Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Designated 2014 HQ124, the asteroid was discovered April 23, 2014, by NASA's NEOWISE mission, a space telescope adapted for scouting the skies for asteroids and comets. The telescope sees infrared gentle, which allows it to select up the infrared glow of asteroids and obtain higher estimates of their true sizes. The NEOWISE data estimate asteroid 2014 HQ124 to be between 800 and 1,300 toes (250 and 400 meters).
"There is zero probability of an influence," mentioned Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Close to-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The fact is, it is pretty widespread for asteroids to pass close to Earth. You'd count on an object about the dimension of 2014 HQ124 to cross this close each few years."
A couple of hundred observe-up observations from NASA-funded, ground-primarily based telescopes and beginner astronomers were used to pin down the orbit of the asteroid out to the year 2200, throughout which time it poses no threat to Earth. Its trajectory will continue to be recalculated past that timeframe as extra observations are received.
Yeomans stated that 2014 HQ124 is an effective goal for radar observations utilizing NASA's Deep Area Community antenna at Goldstone, California, and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, shortly after the closest approach on June 8. Radar measurements of asteroid distances and velocities often enable computation of asteroid orbits much additional into the lengthy run than otherwise known.
2014 HQ124 is designated a "potentially hazardous asteroid," or PHA, which refers to these asteroids 460 ft (140 meters) in dimension or bigger that move within 4.6 million miles (7.four million kilometers) of Earth's orbit around the sun. There are at present 1,484 identified PHAs, however none pose a big close to-term danger of impacting Earth.
"Because NEOWISE is an area telescope observing the dawn and twilight sky at infrared wavelengths, it is particularly good at finding large NEOs that make relatively shut passes to Earth," said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE at JPL. "Utilizing infrared mild, we are ready to estimate the article’s size, and we are able to tell that it displays a good amount of light. Meaning it’s almost certainly a stony object.”
NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing near Earth utilizing each ground- and area-primarily based telescopes. The Close to-Earth Object Program, commonly referred to as "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them and identifies their orbits to determine if any could be doubtlessly hazardous to our planet. So far, U.S. assets have found more than 98 percent of the identified close to-Earth objects.
Along with the assets NASA places into understanding asteroids, it additionally companions with different U.S. authorities businesses, college-based mostly astronomers, and house science institutes across the country which are working to search out, observe and understand these objects higher, typically with grants, interagency transfers and other contracts from NASA. In addition, NASA values the work of quite a few extremely skilled amateur astronomers, whose correct observational information helps improve asteroid orbits after they are found.
JPL manages the Close to-Earth Object Program Workplace for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Extra details about asteroids and close to-Earth objects is available at:
neo.jpl.nasa.gov/
www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch
Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-4673
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
2014-178
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech