Asteroid to Pass Earth on Christmas Eve

A large asteroid is approaching the Earth-moon system and will provide a good opportunity for radar observations in the days ahead. Asteroid 163899 – also known as 2003 SD220 – will come closest to Earth on Christmas Eve (December 24, 2015). It’ll pass at a safe distance, and there’s no need to worry about reports claiming it will skim the Earth, or cause earthquakes. At its closest, asteroid 2003 SD220 will be some 6,787,600 miles (11 million km) from our planet’s surface. That’s more than 28 times the Earth-moon distance! It’s so far away that only professional and advanced amateur astronomers are likely to capture optical images of this space rock.

Don’t believe any media suggesting that this space rock may cause earthquakes. Those assertions are misleading and incorrect. Even if 2003 SD220 were passing closer, it’s doubtful earthquakes would result. In fact, there’s no scientific evidence that an asteroid’s flyby can cause any seismic activity, unless it collides with Earth, but – in this case – that clearly will not be the case.

This asteroid isn’t a newly discovered object. Its name – 2003 SD220 – indicates its discovery year. The Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS) program in Flagstaff, Arizona discovered the asteroid on September 29, 2003.

One notable feature of this asteroid is its large size. Preliminary estimates suggested a size of 0.7 miles to 1.5 miles (1.1 km to 2.5 km). Now the size estimate has been bumped up, after recent radar observations from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico. The new observations suggest the asteroid is about 1.25 miles (2 km) long.

The asteroid is thought to have a very slow rotation of about one week. (Read more from “Asteroid to Pass Earth on Christmas Eve” HERE)

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