Asteroid 1998 OR2 makes closest approach today

[mithridates]

...and I can't find any news on it. This asteroid is much farther out than some of the recent ones (70 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon) but it's still fairly hefty with a diameter of 3.3 km or so, so I assumed there would be some media attention but I can't find anything. Magnitude will be 14, whereas that asteroid that passed right by us on March 2 was magnitude 11.

Anyone know any more?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Well, since it's quite far away, and is never an impact risk to the earth (it passes outside of earth's orbit at perihelion), I suspect you won't hear anything about it in the MSM. It has been recovered, so it's observational arc now covers 21.67 years (earlier pre discovery images from 1987 were found); as a result, it's orbit is now very accurate.

It's more of interest to geeks like us

It is likely a main belt asteroid that has been deflected or perterbed into a near earth orbit, since it's aphelion is in the Main Asteroid Belt.

It's closest approach to earth in the next 2 centuries will be on April 16, 2079 at about 1.4 million km.

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=52768;orb=1

MW

 

[mithridates]

True, most aren't interested in an asteroid even of that size unless it comes really close to the Earth.

I did notice that we got some fairly good photographs even back in 1998 though:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/146781.stm

so surely some fairly large observatories must have made some time to observe 1998 OR2 as it goes by, don't you think?

Edit: wait a second, that's the wrong asteroid. 1998 OH is about the same size though.