[meteorite-list] Asteroid 1999 FN53 Distant 'Flyby' on May 14

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4588

Asteroid Distant 'Flyby' Thursday
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 13, 2015

[Graphic]
This graphic depicts the passage of asteroid 1999 FN53, which will come 
no closer than 26 times the distance from Earth to the moon on May 14, 
2015. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

An asteroid, designated 1999 FN53, will safely pass more than 26 times 
the distance of Earth to the moon on May 14. To put it another way, at 
its closest point, the asteroid will get no closer than 6.3 million miles 
away (10 million kilometers). It will not get closer than  that for well 
over 100 years. And even then, (119 years from now) it will be so far 
away it will not affect our planet in any way, shape or form. 1999 FN53 
is approximately 3,000 feet (1 kilometer) across.

"This is a flyby in the loosest sense of the term," said Paul Chodas, 
manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office, at the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "We can compute the motion of this 
asteroid for the next 3,000 years and it will never be a threat to Earth. 
This is a relatively unremarkable asteroid, and its distant flyby of Earth 
tomorrow is equally unremarkable."

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 

2015-168