Asteroid TU24 to fly-by earth on 29/01 — WE MADE IT !

UPDATE: We made it

No signs of any natural disasters caused by the electromagnetic disturbance either…

2007 TU24 came close enough so the Goldstone Solar System Radar Telescope in California’s Mojave Desert, to refine estimates of the asteroid’s size and take this sequence of images. It zoomed past Earth today at such a distance of only 1.4x the distance between Earth and the Moon.

Measuring between 150m and 600m across, asteroid 2007 TU24 would have inflicted devastating regional damage were it to hit Earth. Fortunately, it flew by today, about 537.500km from the Earth at its closest point at 10.33 AM (Brussels time).

Last week, lots of “doomsday” websites had different ideas…

Here’s a movie on YouTube about the event:

Nasa said that objects of this size came close to Earth about every five years or so, on average. The rock was discovered only last October under a surveillance programme run by the University of Arizona.

Check out the path of the asteroid yourself on NASA’s website.

According to the Minor Planet Centre of the Paris-based International Astronomical Union, the closest detected approach by an asteroid was on March 31 2004, by 2004 FU162, which came within 6 500km of Earth.

Should we worry ?

Let’s review that question on the 30th of January )

Honestly, I don’t think we should worry. Anyway, what would we be able to do ?

Not convinced and up for some doomsday thinking ? Check out this forum and be prepared ! Or look at what happened back in 1908 in Tunguska…

Coincience

The day after 2007 TU24′s terrestrial flypast, another asteroid — named 2007 WD5 — is expected to come within 26000km of Mars, a distance that is less than a whisker in space terms.

More info

• NeoDys (official Near Earth Asteroids website)
• tu24.org – caution: they believe our shadown government is covering up !!! )