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September 02, 2003
Pleased to meet you, 2003 QQ47 and Toutatis ...
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid given Torino 1 rating
NASA Astronomy Pic of the Day (1997) : Earth Nears Asteroid Toutatis
Update 3 September 2003 : It seems the impact risk of asteroid 2003 QQ47 been downgraded on the NASA NEO site. Phew.
Oh dear ...
A potential asteroid impact on 21 March 2014 has been given a Torino hazard rating of 1, defined as ‘an event meriting careful monitoring’. The newly discovered 1.2 km wide asteroid, known to scientists as 2003 QQ47, has a mass of around 2 600 billion kg, and would deliver around 350 000 MT of energy in an impact with Earth. Currently, the overall probability of this asteroid impacting Earth is 1 in 909 000. However, the orbit calculations are based on just 51 observations during a 7-day period. Dr Alan Fitzsimmons of Queen’s University, Belfast, one of the expert team advising the UK NEO information Centre said “The NEO will be observable from Earth for the next 2 months, and astronomers will continue to track it over this period.”
I hope Kevin is right:
“As additional observations are made over the coming months, and the uncertainties decrease, asteroid 2003 QQ47 is likely to drop down the Torino scale,” said Kevin Yates, project manager for the UK NEO Information Centre, based at the National Space Centre in Leicester.
That's if we survive this one on September 29, 2004 ...:
"the Earth will pass very near Toutatis, closing to within a million miles (4 times the Earth-Moon distance) - the closest approach predicted for any asteroid or comet between now and 2060"
Still, it sounds as if this is a confidently predicted miss ... I hope.
There is a nice link here to an animated GIF explaining the process of determining the position of these asteroids with greater precision over time.
Here is a list of current Near-Earth Object worries, and here is an explanation of the Torino scale.
Sleep well.
Posted by daen at September 2, 2003 12:47 PM