[meteorite-list] Near-Earth Asteroid 2007 TU24 to Pass Close To Past Earth on Jan. 29 - Should be Observable with Modest Sized Telescopes

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:44:02 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <200801222244.OAA04213_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news157.html

Near-Earth Asteroid 2007 TU24 to Pass Close To Past Earth on Jan. 29 -
Should be Observable with Modest Sized Telescopes

Don Yeomans
NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office
January 22, 2008

Asteroid 2007 TU24, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on October 11,
2007 will closely approach the Earth to within 1.4 lunar distances
(334,000 miles) on 2008 Jan. 29 08:33 UT. This object, between 150 and
600 meters in diameter, will reach an approximate apparent magnitude
10.3 on Jan. 29-30 before quickly becoming fainter as it moves further
from Earth. For a brief time the asteroid will be observable in dark and
clear skies with amateur telescopes of 3 inch apertures or larger.

For an interactive illustration of this object's orbit see:

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2007+TU24&orb=1

The illustration below is courtesy of amateur astronomer Dr. Dale
Ireland from Silverdale, WA. The illustration shows the asteroid's track
on the sky for 3 days near the time of the close Earth approach as seen
from the city of Philadelphia. Since the object's parallax will be a
significant fraction of a degree, observers are encouraged to use our
on-line Horizons ephemeris generation service for their specific
locations. These personalized ephemeris tables can be generated at:
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?find_body=1&body_group=sb&sstr=2007%20TU24

[Illustration]

Given the estimated number of near-Earth asteroids of this size (about
7,000 discovered and undiscovered objects), an object of this size would
be expected to pass this close to Earth, on average, about every 5 years
or so. The average interval between actual Earth impacts for an object
of this size would be about 37,000 years. For the January 29th
encounter, near Earth asteroid 2007 TU24 has no chance of hitting, or
affecting, Earth.

2007 TU24 will be the closest currently known approach by a potentially
hazardous asteroid of this size or larger until 2027. Plans have been
made for the Goldstone planetary radar to observe this object Jan 23-24
and for the Arecibo radar to observe it Jan 27-28 and then Feb 1-4. High
resolution radar imaging is expected, which may permit later 3-D shape
reconstruction.
Received on Tue 22 Jan 2008 05:44:02 PM PST