SMALL ASTEROID MAKES CLOSEST FLYBY EVER

Hi folks,
I saw this on space.com this evening, posted yesterday. Very interesting. I edited it a bit to make it more easier to read without all the quotes etc etc...

Seanie.


SMALL ASTEROID MAKES CLOSEST EARTH FLYBY EVER NOTICED

A small asteroid was discovered in late September a few hours after it passed closer to Earth than any previously known space rock. Had it struck Earth's atmosphere, it was too small to pose any serious threat, astronomers said. The event was a common one, scientists stressed. Hundreds of similar close passes likely occur every year but the objects go undetected.
The flyby occurred, during an 8-day stretch when an uncommon number of space-rock reports were made around the world, from sightings of colourful explosions in the atmosphere to reported impacts on the ground. Scientists have made no connections between any of the half-dozen events.
The asteroid is named 2003 SQ222. It came within 54,700 miles (88,000 kilometers) of Earth, or less than a quarter the distance to the Moon, on Sept. 27th. That breaks a near-miss record set in 1994. However, in both cases, the rocks were probably no larger than a house. That is extremely small compared to other chunks of stone and iron that sometimes pass near Earth.
The discovery was made by Robert Cash, who works for Minor Planet Research, Inc. He detected the asteroid using his home computer in Fountain Hills, Arizona, while beta-testing a product for the Asteroid Discovery Station (ADS) to be installed at the Arizona Challenger Learning Center in Peoria, Arizona. The product is expected to eventually offer students a chance to find asteroids.
Cash's observations were sent to an affiliated asteroid search program at the Lowell Observatory, as well as to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge Massachusetts, where asteroid observations worldwide are collected.
In a good month, between 5 to 10 near-Earth asteroids are found, but usually the ones that are discovered are as big as mountains or football stadiums.
Further observations by the LONEOS (Lowell Observatory’s Near-Earth-Object Search) program and other astronomers confirmed the object's rough size, path and time of close approach. It is thought to be less than 33 feet (10 meters) in diameter and to orbit the Sun every 1.85 Earth-years on an elliptical path.

Some other asteroids on the list of Top 10 close approaches to Earth are disconcerting, for their larger size suggests had they hit the planet they could have caused local or regional damage. But 2003 SQ222 is not the sort of rock astronomers worry about too much. Had it been on target, it would have exploded harmlessly in the upper atmosphere, with an energy comparable to that of a small atomic bomb.
Astronomers estimate there are about 500 million undiscovered asteroids as big or larger than 2003 SQ222 that inhabit the general space through which Earth orbits. About 3,000 of them pass closer than the Moon every year but are not detected. Perhaps 100 of them come closer than 2003 SQ222 each year it is estimated.
These rocks go mostly unnoticed because they are too small and too faint in the sky to be detected by the handful of telescopes devoted to asteroid hunting. They sometimes become spectacular fireballs, visible from hundreds of miles around on the ground when they vaporize in Earth's atmosphere. These things are completely harmless, they are no more than interplanetary tourist attractions.
Asteroid detections have skyrocketed in recent years, as new electronic cameras increase sensitivity and automated telescopes scan the skies for anything that moves in relation to background stars.
On Sept. 19 this year, another small rock, named 2003 SW130, zoomed by at about 100,000 miles (160,000 kilometers) distance.

Sometimes, asteroids or pieces of them do strike the surface, as apparently occurred with two events last month during an 8-day period of unusually intense terrestrial activity generated from above. The most intriguing of these was an apparent meteor strike in India that injured three people (see article in this issue –Ed.).
2003 SQ222's record-setting close approach came within hours of the Indian meteor, but astronomers doubt any connection between the two events. The rash of reported events did intrigue scientists though.