[meteorite-list] Asteroid 2004 MN4: A Really Near Miss!

[Darren Garrison]

On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 16:32:42 -0800 (PST), Ron Baalke <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

>Paul Chodas, Steve Chesley, Jon Giorgini and Don Yeomans of NASA's Near
>Earth Object Program calculate that the asteroid will pass 4.7 Earth
>radii (30,000 kilometers, or 18,600 miles) from Earth's surface. This is

Wow.  Plenty of time to plan a (relatively) easy visit and sample recovery mission.  That's lower
than geosynchronous orbit!

Of course, if you wanted to be a bit more ambitious, given 24 years we could probably even throw
together a project to nudge it into Earth orbit, but I think that would get some pretty bad press.

Maybe we could nudge it into the moon and watch it hit!