Does anybody knows a little bit more about asteroid 2004 XP14?

Question

This asteroid is suposed to be very close to the earth on july 3 2006...very scary to me!!!

Answer 1

That'll be a close one for sure. But it will miss us by about 269,700 miles (the moon is 238,857 miles from us) which is close but not as close as Apophis, which will harmlessly pass Earth at about 21,390 miles in 2029. Further observation has pretty much eliminated any threat from that one but in 2004 they were pretty worried. However, there is concern over (29075) 1950 DA which looks like it might hit us. But I wouldn't be too worried as we have about 900 years to wait for that one.

Answer 2

The calculations are that 2004 XP14 is going to pass the earth harmlessly. When they pass between the earth and the moon then it's time to start worrying.

If you want to be scared, think that during the daylight hours of June 30, the earth will be passing through the beta Taurid stream. The pieces of the stream are on their way back into deep space from rounding the sun. The pieces in the stream are hard to detect because they are coming out of the sun. In 1908 a chunk of a comet in the beta taurid stream smacked into Tunguska with the power of a Hydrogen bomb.

I live near the Tswaing crater which was caused by a meteor impact 200 000 years ago. So statistically this area shouldn't be hit by something from space for a while.

Answer 3

Although there is no chance XP14 will hit us, nobody has made the point that in regard to human safety in the next decades/centuries/millennia, this is worryingly close - about 30 Earth diameters. If you imagine a target with Earth as bullseye, and XP14 hitting the rim of the target, that target is less than 4000 times the area of its Earth bullseye. If a body of this size comes this close once a year, it points to seriously problematic impacts in the course of Millennia and not millions of years.

Any impactor above 1 km is considered a "civilisation destroyer". XP14 isn't far short, at around 600m. At over 17 km/sec relative velocity, XP14 would release energy equivalent to many thousand megaton bombs (someone mentioned Tunguska - XP14 is approx 1000 times the mass of that impactor).

If XP14 is not a signal that we should concentrate our space program on eliminating the threat of impacts, then I don't know what is. To ignore it is to condemn civilisation to a very uncertain future.

Answer 4

besides the undeniable fact that XP14 will bypass the Earth at around one lunar distance, that would not propose it is going to likely be everywhere close to the moon. That Earth "omit" distance is basically a linear degree. With area you could desire to think of three-dimensionally, and there are hundreds of paths alongside which the asteroid could desire to bypass us at lunar distance and nevertheless no longer be everywhere close to the moon. yet does no longer it is super if it did hit the moon. If it hit on the section we see, we'd get a sparkling crater to look at. If it hit on the dark element to a crescent moon, we'd see an surprising gentle coach. Shrapnel from the explosion might little question rain down on earth in an excellent demonstrate of meteors.

Answer 5

This should do it

http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~fine/Astro/flybys.cgi?page=detail&object=2004+XP14&when=2006-07-03%26nbsp;02:24:00

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2004+XP14

Do not worry the Earth isnot going into corner nor side pockets yet.

Answer 6

July 3rd, eh? Just in time for the 4th of July. Then we have something to really celebrate about!

Answer 7

It might crash into the moon... I hear the miss distance is supposed to be 1.1 LD, or about .003 AU, or about 275,000 miles, or about 440,000 km. It'll get closest at about 5:30 AM...

Answer 8

http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/cgi-bin/get.cgi?des=2004+xp14
410 - 920 m (meters)

Not going to hit us and missing us by far enough of a margin to be sure.

Answer 9

That's my wife's birthday. If the calculations are off and it hits, it'll wreck her whole day.