1.7 Mile Wide Asteroid 1998 QE2 to Pass Within 3.6 Million Miles of Earth on May 31, 2013
Posted on May 19, 2013
1998 QE2, a 1.7-mile-wide (2.7 km) asteroid, will pass within 3.6 million miles of the Earth on May 31, 2013. The image above shows the orbit of asteroid 1998 QE2.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the asteroid is about nine times bigger than the length of the Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) cruise ship. The 1998 portion of the asteroid's name is the year it was discovered. NASA says radar from the Goldstone antenna could resolve features on the asteroid as small as 12 feet.
Lance Benner, the principal investigator for the Goldstone radar observations from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement, "Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target at Goldstone and Arecibo and we expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface features. Whenever an asteroid approaches this closely, it provides an important scientific opportunity to study it in detail to understand its size, shape, rotation, surface features, and what they can tell us about its origin. We will also use new radar measurements of the asteroid's distance and velocity to improve our calculation of its orbit and compute its motion farther into the future than we could otherwise."
The budget for NASA"s NEO (Near Earth Object Program) was increased from $6 million to $20 million in 2012. This still seems very small, especially considered the recent Russian meteorite impact. NEO's website can be found here.