Next week, a 45 meter-wide space rock will zoom safely by. But as far as cosmic distances go, it will be a close shave. Watch NASA video and how to spot the asteroid!
Asteroid 2012 DA14 will make close approach on Feb. 15, flying closer than geosynchronous orbit (27,700 kilometers or 17,200 miles or 1/13th the Earth-moon distance). So unless you’re a communications satellite, you have nothing to fear. But even if you were a communications satellite, it’s unlikely you’d get swatted by the asteroid juggernaut as space is really, really big.
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“NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office can accurately predict the asteroid’s path with the observations obtained, and it is therefore known that there is no chance that the asteroid might be on a collision course with Earth,” asteroid hunters at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., announced on Feb. 1. 2012 DA14 was discovered in February 2012 by the La Sagra Sky Survey in Spain, so its orbital trajectory is very well known.
But the rock will come close enough to Earth’s gravitational well so its orbit will be dramatically modified — after its near-Earth encounter, asteroid 2012 DA14′s orbital period around the sun will be shortened from 368 to 317 days.
So, far from this being a worrying event, the 2012 DA14 flyby will be an incredible opportunity for amateur astronomers and scientists alike. Viewers in Europe, Asia and Australia should be able to spot the asteroid flyby using binoculars or low-powered telescopes. Unfortunately, according to SPACE.com, viewers in the US will be out of luck — the asteroid will be too faint to spot by the time the Earth rotates, bringing the 2012 DA14 into view.
