[Bazmundo]

Astronomers in one of Europe's darkest locations, Granada, Spain, saw a close pass by a 30-50 metre asteroid last month - now dubbed "2012 DA14". It has a very similar orbital period to ours, though it's trajectory is almost perpendicular, so it will be back for another pass on February 22nd 2013 but this time much closer.

It's widely being reported as predicted to pass at 24,000km or 3.2 R_e (within the geosynchronous orbital satellite altitude) but that's actually the minimum probable approach distance. In reality it's likely to be further away, and no threat of impact is implied. It is however, very close for an object of that size (of which there are a further half million near-Earth up to 30m wide) and needs to be watched carefully after to see what effects the Earth and Moon's gravitational fields have upon it's future orbital path. ESA reckon they need to achieve 3 months warning of such encounters, but I don't know what they'll do in that time if it's an impactor?

Details: pass peak time 19.26UTC, 22nd Feb 2013. Starting in the southern sky and quickly transiting to the northern one, fast and dim at +7 (not naked eye visibility). Actually gets eclipsed for 18mins by Earth.

More at: http://neo.jpl.nasa....ws/news174.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_DA14 http://www.google.co...81331832163670A