A newly discovered asteroid will zip close by Earth Thursday, but poses no threat of crashing into our planet even though it is passing within the orbit of the moon. The asteroid, called 2010 GA6, is a relatively small space rock about 71 feet wide and was discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Az. The space rock will fly within the orbit of the moon when it passes Earth Thursday at 7:06 p.m. EDT (2306 GMT), but NASA astronomers said not to worry...the planet is safe. Read more
A newly discovered asteroid, 2010 GA6, will safely fly by Earth this Thursday at 4:06 p.m. Pacific (23:06 U.T.C.). At time of closest approach 2010 GA6 will be about 359,000 kilometres away from Earth - about 9/10ths the distance from to the moon. The asteroid, approximately 22 meters wide, was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey, Tucson, Az. Read more
The 17 - 38 metre wide asteroid 2010 GA6 will make a close pass (0.9 lunar distances, 0.0024 AU), travelling at 10.88 km/second, to the Earth-Moon system on the 8th April, 2010. See more
The Lunar Distance (LD), the distance between Earth and the Moon, equals 384,401 km, (or 0.00256 AU).
Orbital elements: 2010 GA6 Earth MOID = 0.0018 AU Epoch 2010 July 23.0 TT = JDT 2455400.5 MPC M 27.76031 (2000.0) P Q n 0.34778089 Peri. 32.71649 -0.63392039 +0.77191970 a 2.0026216 Node 198.09159 -0.73855511 -0.62254603 e 0.5262058 Incl. 8.85471 -0.22952407 -0.12874944 P 2.83 H 26.0 G 0.15 U 7