Fact of the day #7: June 14 2002: Asteroid’s near-miss with Earth
An asteroid big enough to devastate 2000 square kilometers but small enough to escape detection missed the Earth by just 120,000 kilometers on 14 June 2002.
The approach of asteroid 2002 MN was the closest recorded by astronomers since asteroid 1994 XM1 came slightly closer eight years ago.
However, asteroid 1994 XM1 was estimated at only 10 meters across, too small to cause much damage on the ground. Asteroid 2002 MN is estimated to have a diameter of 80 meters, comparable to the object that exploded a few kilometres over the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908, causing widespread devastation.
Congratulations to all. Life goes on. :)
If it was too small to escape detection how did they detect it?
They did detect it a few days after it reached it closest point. The original data about the discovery is here:
http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K02/K02M14.html
so they detected it as it was going away.
that's useful.
Haha, I do agree that that is not really reassuring for next events.
Odd that NASA and the UN have discouraged private space development isn't it?