Saturday 2 January 2016

Asteroid 2015 YV9 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2015 YV9 passed by the Earth at a distance of 3 602 000 km (9.37 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 2.4`% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 3.00 pm GMT on Saturday 26 December 2015. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though had it done so it would have presented only a minor threat. 2015 YV9 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 14-43 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 14-43  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 between 28 and 10 km above the ground, with only fragmentary material reaching the Earth's surface.

 The calculated orbit of 2015 YV9JPL Small Body Database.

2015 YV9 was discovered on 30 December 2015 (four days after its closest approach to the Earth) by the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey, which is located in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. The designation 2015 YV9 implies that it was the 246th asteroid (asteroid V9) discovered in the second half of December 2015 (period 2015 Y).

2015 YV9 has an 1135day orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted at an angle of 6.16° to the plane of the Solar System that takes it from 1.01 AU from the Sun (i.e. 101 % of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun) to 3.25 AU from the Sun (i.e. 325% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, over twice times the distance at which the planet Mars orbits). It is therefore classed as an Amor Group Asteroid (an asteroid which comes close to the Earth, but which is always outside the Earth's orbit).

See also...

http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/januarys-first-meteor-shower-2015.htmlJanuary's first meteor shower: The 2015 Quadrantids.                                                 The Quadrantid Meteor Shower is one of the brightest meteor showers of the year, often producing over 100 meteors per hour at its peak, which falls on the night...
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/asteroid-2015-xa378-passes-earth.htmlAsteroid 2015 XA378 passes the Earth. Asteroid 2015 XA378 passed by the Earth at a distance of 3 857 000 km (10.0times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 3.40% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 7.15 pm GMT on Saturday 19...

http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/asteroid-2015-xe1-passes-earth.htmlAsteroid 2015 XE1 passes the Earth.      Asteroid 2015 XE1 passed by the Earth at a distance of 5 080 000 km (13.2 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 3.40% of the average distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 3.00 am GMT on Saturday 19 December 2015...


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