Earth Approaching Objects : December 13th, 2015

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NASA Confirms 60 feet Asteroid is on Course for a Close Encounter with Earth

nemesis maturity

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Published on Dec 13, 2015

It’s hurtling through space at 35,000 miles per hour and this 60 feet space rock will have a very close encounter with earth

Asteroid 2015 XY261, which was first observed on December 12, 2015, will pass within 0.8 lunar distances (the distance between Earth and the Moon) of Earth.
The space rock is going to pass very close to our planet with a Condition code of 7 – MPC “U” parameter: orbit uncertainty estimate 0-9, with 0 being good, and 9 being highly uncertain.

There are currently 8 known NEO asteroids discovered that will pass with less than 10 LD’s up to the end of this month.
Two mountain-sized asteroids will safely pass on Dec, 24th and 29th.
http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot…
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr…
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/

While confirming that the asteroid is not a threat to Earth, scientists say that if the asteroid were on course to impact earth it would cause a multimegaton atmospheric explosion over Earth’s surface, rather than impacting it. It potentially would be quite damaging (and even lethal) out to distances of 20 to 40 kilometers in all directions if it happened over a populated region with weak structures.

There is a roughly 50 percent chance of a 30-meter-plus asteroid striking Earth each century, according to NLSI team member Clark Chapman, space scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Please report your meteor sightings to this website for posting- Remember IF you are looking for a report and no one reports then everyone lacks information; thank you.
http://lunarmeteoritehunters.blogspot…

Music credit: Impact Prelude by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-…
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

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All Sky Fireball Network

Every night, a network of NASA all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software maintained by NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth in Earth’s atmosphere and many other characteristics. Daily results are presented here on Spaceweather.com.

On Dec. 13, 2015, the network reported 29 fireballs.
(15 Geminids, 10 sporadics, 2 December Monocerotids, 1 Quadrantid, 1 alpha Canis Majorid)

In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point–Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [Larger image] [movies]

Near Earth Asteroids

Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.

On December 13, 2015 there were potentially hazardous asteroids.

Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:

Asteroid	Date(UT)	Miss Distance	Size
2015 XU169	Dec 10	9.5 LD	16 m
1998 WT24	Dec 11	10.9 LD	1.1 km
2015 XA169	Dec 12	7.4 LD	15 m
2015 XR169	Dec 13	1.3 LD	8 m
2015 XX128	Dec 14	2.4 LD	25 m
2015 XX169	Dec 14	8.4 LD	14 m
2015 XN55	Dec 15	2.5 LD	15 m
2015 XY261	Dec 15	0.8 LD	16 m
2015 XL261	Dec 17	9.7 LD	42 m
2015 XE1	Dec 19	13.2 LD	29 m
2015 XN261	Dec 23	2.6 LD	31 m
2011 YD29	Dec 24	9.7 LD	24 m
2003 SD220	Dec 24	28.4 LD	1.8 km
2008 CM	Dec 29	22.8 LD	1.5 km
2004 MQ1	Jan 2	55.4 LD	1.1 km
1999 JV6	Jan 6	12.6 LD	410 m
1685 Toro	Jan 22	60.9 LD	1.7 km
2001 XR1	Jan 23	74.4 LD	1.5 km
2015 VC2	Jan 28	5.8 LD	15 m

Notes: LD means “Lunar Distance.” 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.

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