[meteorite-list] Asteroid Icarus to Make Distant Pass on June 16 (Updated)

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4625

Asteroid Icarus to Make Distant Pass Tuesday
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
June 15, 2015

Asteroid Icarus will safely pass by Earth at more than 21 times the distance 
of Earth to the moon on June 16. To put it another way, Icarus, one of 
the first near-Earth asteroids ever discovered (1949), will approach no 
closer than five million miles away (eight million kilometers). On June 
14, 2090, the asteroid will approach marginally closer, with a close approach 
distance of about 17 lunar distances (four million miles, or six-and-a-half 
million kilometers).

Discovered back in 1949 using photographic plates on the 48-inch Schmidt 
telescope at Mount Palomar near San Diego, Icarus was one of early near-Earth 
asteroids. It has an eccentric orbit that takes it very close to the sun, 
only 17 million miles (27 million kilometers) above the sun's surface. 
That's less than half the distance of Mercury's average distance to the 
sun. The asteroid was appropriately named after the mythical boy whose 
wax wings melted when he flew too close to the sun. For many decades, 
Icarus held the record for the closest known sun-approaching asteroid, 
but we now know of many other asteroids that approach even closer.

In its current orbit, Icarus can approach to within about 4 million miles 
(6.5 million kilometers) to Earth, which means it's categorized as a potentially 
hazardous asteroid (PHA). Tuesday's flyby of about 5 million miles (8 
million kilometers) is the closest Icarus has approached since 1968. That 
close encounter was noteworthy because it was the first time an asteroid 
was observed by radar. Icarus will be extensively observed by radar on 
this year's passage, and we may even obtain the first-ever images of this 
famous object.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets using both 
ground- and space-based telescopes. Elements of the Near-Earth Object 
Program, often referred to as "Spaceguard," discover these objects, characterize 
a subset of them and identify their close approaches to determine if any 
could be potentially hazardous to our planet. NASA's Near-Earth Object 
Program is part of the agency's asteroid initiative, which includes sending 
a robotic spacecraft to capture a boulder from the surface of a near-Earth 
asteroid and move it into a stable orbit around the moon for exploration 
by astronauts, all in support of advancing the nation's journey to Mars.

JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission 
Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute 
of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects is at:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

To get updates on passing space rocks, follow:

http://twitter.com/asteroidwatch


Media Contact

DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle at jpl.nasa.gov 

Dwayne Brown
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov 

2015-204