[meteorite-list] Asteroid 2014 UR116, A 400-meter Sized Near-Earth Asteroid, Represents No Threat to the Earth

[Ron Baalke]

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news187.html

Asteroid 2014 UR116, A 400-meter Sized Near-Earth Asteroid, Represents 
No Threat to the Earth

NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office
December 8, 2014

Some recent press reports have suggested that an asteroid designated 2014 
UR116, found on October 27, 2014, at the MASTER-II observatory in Kislovodsk, 
Russia, represents an impact threat to the Earth. While this approximately 
400-meter sized asteroid has a three year orbital period around the sun 
and returns to the Earth's neighborhood periodically, it does not represent 
a threat because it's orbital path does not pass sufficiently close to 
the Earth's orbit.

Furthermore, Tim Spahr, Director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge 
Massachusetts, has also re-computed this object's orbit after noticing 
that it was the same as an object observed six years ago. Using both sets 
of observations, the future motion of this asteroid was carried further 
forward in time using the automatic computations made by the Sentry system 
at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 
These computations rule out this object as an impact threat to Earth (or 
any other planet) for at least the next 150 years.

Any statements about risk for impact of discovered asteroids and comets 
should be verified by scientists and the media by accessing NASA' Near 
Earth Object (NEO) Program web site at

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/

or the European equivalent, the NEO Dynamic Site at

http://newton.dm.unipi.it/neodys/index.php?pc=4.1 .