I was observing with the Catalina Sky Survey 60 inch telescope on Mt Lemmon, Arizona when a fast moving object appeared on a set of four images of the same area of the night sky. After I sent the discovery observations to the Minor Planet Center this new object was observed by telescopes in Arizona, Germany , South Bohemia in the Czech Republic , Chile, Pennsylvania , Italy, Hungary, and France. 2017 FE101's unusual path about our Sun is inclined by 53 degrees to the plane where the planets and most of the rest of the asteroids are located. In September of 2016 it was not observed by humans as it streaked by at an amazing 22 miles per second. Once every 125,000 years or so a 5 football field sized asteroid like 2017 FE101 collides with our planet producing a crater 4 or 5 miles in diameter, inflicts damage over a hurricane sized foot print on the Earth's surface, and in some cases throws up enough debris into the atmosphere to produce global climate change. Since on its current path, 2017 FE101 can't come closer than about 21 times the moon's distance from us , this very large space rock is not currently classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid. Rest assured that my team the Catalina Sky Survey and asteroid hunters world wide will keep track of 2017 FE101 as it comes near to Mars and Earth to make sure that its path does not change to make it a threat to our home planet.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related