is an

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

near-Earth asteroid A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance (astronomical unit, AU). This definition applies to the object's orbit aro ...

roughly in diameter. The asteroid had a 0.41% chance (1 in 240) of impacting Earth on 2 November 2020 01:12 UT. It was discovered on 3 November 2018 when it was about from Earth and had a

solar elongation In astronomy, a planet's elongation is the angular separation between the Sun and the planet, with Earth as the reference point. The greatest elongation is the maximum angular separation. Astronomical tables and websites, such as Heavens-Abov ...

of 165 degrees. The asteroid has a short 12.9 day

observation arc In observational astronomy, the observation arc (or arc length) of a Solar System body is the time period between its earliest and latest observations, used for tracing the body's path. It is usually given in days or years. The term is mostly use ...

. It was last observed on 16 November 2018 by the

European Southern Observatory The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 m ...

Very Large Telescope The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is an astronomical facility operated since 1998 by the European Southern Observatory, located on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each equipped with ...

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the Irradiance, brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction (astronomy), ...

26 pushing the telescope close to the

limiting magnitude In astronomy, limiting magnitude is the faintest apparent magnitude of a celestial body that is detectable or detected by a given instrument. In some cases, limiting magnitude refers to the upper threshold of detection. In more formal uses, limi ...

. The

JPL Horizons JPL Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System provides access to key Solar System data and flexible production of highly accurate ephemerides for Solar System objects. Osculating elements at a given epoch (such as produced by the JPL Small-Body Datab ...

2 November 2020

nominal Nominal may refer to: Linguistics and grammar * Nominal (linguistics), one of the parts of speech * Nominal, the adjectival form of "noun", as in "nominal agreement" (= "noun agreement") * Nominal sentence, a sentence without a finite verb * Nou ...

Earth approach was estimated as roughly . The line of variations (LOV, uncertainty region) allowed the asteroid to impact Earth or pass as far away as . Its diameter of 2–4 meters makes it approximately 100–1000 times less massive than the 20-meter

Chelyabinsk meteor The Chelyabinsk meteor () was a superbolide that entered Earth's atmosphere over the southern Ural region in Russia on 15 February 2013 at about 09:20 YEKT (03:20 UTC). It was caused by an approximately , near-Earth asteroid that entered ...

. An Earth-

impact Impact may refer to: * Impact (mechanics), a large force or mechanical shock over a short period of time * Impact, Texas, a town in Taylor County, Texas, US Science and technology * Impact crater, a meteor crater caused by an impact event * Imp ...

by this asteroid, assuming it is a common primitive

chondrite A chondrite is a stony (non-metallic) meteorite that has not been modified by either melting or planetary differentiation, differentiation of the parent body. They are formed when various types of dust and small grains in the early Solar Syste ...

, might rattle some windows after an airburst and/or drop

pebble A pebble is a clastic rocks, clast of rock (geology), rock with a grain size, particle size of based on the Particle size (grain size), Udden-Wentworth scale of sedimentology. Pebbles are generally considered larger than Granule (geology), gra ...

-sized meteorites on roof tops after

dark flight ''Dark Flight'' () is a 2012 Thai horror film. The film was directed by Issara Nadee. It shows the journey of a passenger plane haunted by ghosts that gradually trick the passengers into going insane and killing each other. Plot Ten years ago, f ...

. Preliminarily results are that nothing was detected via

infrasound Infrasound, sometimes referred to as low frequency sound or incorrectly subsonic (subsonic being a descriptor for "less than the speed of sound"), describes sound waves with a Audio frequency, frequency below the lower limit of human audibility ...

or atmospheric flash monitors. The asteroid was not visually recovered.

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has a low 3.2°

orbital inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth ...

with respect to the

ecliptic plane The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of Earth around the Sun. It was a central concept in a number of ancient sciences, providing the framework for key measurements in astronomy, astrology and calendar-making. From the perspec ...

and an Earth-

MOID Minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) is a measure used in astronomy to assess potential close approaches and collision risks between astronomical objects. It is defined as the distance between the closest points of the osculating orbits of ...

of only 9700 km. Since the asteroid approached Earth in November 2018 and has a 2.00 year

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

, the asteroid approached Earth again around 2 November 2020 (±3 days). Where Earth will be on a given date is known. However, given the short observation arc and the two years since it was seen at all, the location of the asteroid along its orbit was imprecisely known. The asteroid intersected Earth's orbit. A slight variation in the known orbit of the asteroid can cause it to be early (NEODyS solution), right on time (Sentry solution), or late (JPL solution). The nominal

NEODyS NEODyS (Near Earth Objects Dynamic Site) is an Italian service that provides information on near-Earth objects with a Web-based interface. It is based on a continually and (almost) automatically maintained database of near earth asteroid orbits. T ...

1 November 2020 23:54 UT Earth approach is . The Sentry Risk Table showed an estimated 1 in 240 chance of Earth impact on 2 November 2020 1:12 UT. The nominal JPL Horizons 2 November 2020 11:33 UT Earth approach was with a 3-sigma uncertainty of .

Impact line

The line of variation (LOV) passed across the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

.Path of risk (Risk Corridor)
(Peter Thomas, 26 July 2019) The asteroid came to opposition (opposite the Sun in the sky) at the end of May 2020 at an estimated

of ~31, and as a moving object was much too faint for any telescope to detect. Large ground-based observatories take 10 hours to image a magnitude ~28 object. The

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

needs 3 weeks of

exposure time In photography, shutter speed or exposure time is the length of time that the film or digital sensor inside the camera is exposed to light (that is, when the camera's shutter is open) when taking a photograph. The amount of light that rea ...

to image magnitude 31 objects. The November 2020 Earth approach was expected be hidden by the glare of the Sun due to the asteroid's low

in that time. Since the asteroid is only about in diameter it is too small to do more than create a

bolide A bolide is normally taken to mean an exceptionally bright meteor, but the term is subject to more than one definition, according to context. It may refer to any large Impact crater, crater-forming body, or to one that explodes in the atmosphere. ...

and common

strewn field A strewn field is the area where meteorites from a single meteorite fall, fall are dispersed. It is also often used for the area containing tektite, tektites produced by a large meteorite impact.''Tektites in the geological record: showers of glas ...

similar to the

Sutter's Mill meteorite The Sutter's Mill meteorite is a carbonaceous chondrite which entered the Earth's atmosphere and broke up at about 07:51 Pacific Time on April 22, 2012, with fragments landing in the United States. The name comes from Sutter's Mill, a California ...

or 2014 AA. It is not categorized as a

potentially hazardous object A potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth object – either an asteroid or a comet – with an orbit that can make close approaches to the Earth and which is large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact. Th ...

given the estimated size is smaller than the threshold for potentially hazardous objects which are estimated at more than 140 meters in diameter.

Notes

References

External links

List Of Apollo Minor Planets (by designation)
''Minor Planet Center'' * *
IAWN: 2018 VP1 Geometry
(2018 Approach)

– Sormano Astronomical Observatory

– hohmanntransfer
Asteroid Hazards, Part 3: Finding the Path
– YouTube video by the Minor Planet Center (26 August 2015) {{DEFAULTSORT:2018 VP1 # Minor planet object articles (unnumbered) Potential impact events caused by near-Earth objects

20201102 Eleven or 11 may refer to: *11 (number) * One of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011 Literature *Eleven (novel), ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn *''Eleven'', a 1970 collection of short stories by Patricia Highsmi ...

20181103

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Impact line

See also

Notes

References

External links