_

Two Small Asteroids to Pass Close by Earth on September 8, 2010

NASA / JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office
September 7, 2010

Two asteroids, several meters in diameter and in unrelated orbits, will pass within the Moon's distance of Earth on Wednesday, September 8th.

The Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson Arizona discovered both objects on the morning of September 5 during their routine monitoring of the skies.

The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge Massachusetts first received the observations Sunday morning, determined preliminary orbits and concluded that both objects would pass within the distance of the Moon about three days after their discovery.

Near Earth asteroid 2010 RX30 is estimated to be 10 to 20 meters in size and will pass within 0.6 lunar distances of Earth (about 248,000 km) at 9:51 Greenwich standard time (5:51 am EDT) Wednesday.

The second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 6 to 14 meters in size will pass within 0.2 lunar distances (79,000 km) a few hours later at 21:12 Greenwich standard time (5:12 pm EDT).

Both objects should be observable near closest approach with moderate sized amateur telescopes. Although neither of these object has a chance of hitting Earth, a ten meter-sized near-Earth asteroid from the undiscovered population of about 50 million would be expected to pass almost daily within a lunar distance, and one might strike Earth's atmosphere about every ten years on average.

read more here ...

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

---

It was in 1956 as we were filing into the church in Key West Florida for our Confirmation ceremony when an Asteroid (Meteor) came over. There was a loud explosion to the North and a flash of light. A large object and several smaller ones sailed by trailing fire and smoke. I could hear a sizzling and hissing sound. It seemed to be traveling somewhat slowly since it remained in view for maybe 10 seconds. It was impossible to tell how big the object was since there was no frame of reference to determine how high the objects were--they appeared to be quite large--several meters in size but you couldn't really tell.

The next day in the paper there was a report. Jets had been scrambled from Boca Chica naval air base to track the object. It was a meteor and it landed in the ocean somewhere near Cuba about 90 miles away. So it must have been fairly high up to travel that far, and therefore it must have been fairly large even though it was at a shallow angle to the atmosphere.