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Asteroid & Earth Get Close Today, As House-Sized Space Rock ’2012 TC4′ Passes Within 59,000 Miles
By: Tariq Malik
Published: 10/12/2012 07:50 AM EDT on SPACE.com
An asteroid the size of a house will buzz Earth today (Oct. 12) but poses no risk of hitting our planet, scientists say.
The asteroid 2012 TC4 will pass Earth at a range of just 59,000 miles (95,000 kilometers) —about one-fourth the distance to the moon — when it makes its closest point today, NASA scientists said. The asteroid was discovered by astronomers on Oct. 4 and is about 56 feet (17 meters) across.
“Small asteroid 2012 TC4 will safely pass Earth Oct 12 at just .25 the distance to our moon’s orbit,” scientists with NASA’s Asteroid Watch program wrote in a Twitter update this week. On average, the moon’s orbit is about 238,000 miles (383,000 km).
The asteroid is large enough to be seen by backyard astronomers using a small telescope, the night sky events website Spaceweather.com has reported.
Near-Earth flybys of small asteroids like 2012 TC4 pass inside the orbit of the moon fairly often, Asteroid Watch scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., explained. On Sunday (Oct. 7), the 100-foot-wide (32-meter) asteroid 2012 TV also passed inside the moon’s orbit, missing Earth by about 158,000 miles (255,000 kilometers).
Not close enough!