2005 YU55 Passed Closer To Earth Than Our Own Moon

It probably didn't interrupt your routine, but Asteroid 2005 YU55 passed closer to the Earth than our own Moon Tuesday afternoon. Scientists say there were no noticeable gravitational effects on tides or tectonic plates.

On Monday at 1145 PST, NASA’s Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, California captured new radar images of the asteroid when it was still about 860,000 miles away. Tracking of the aircraft carrier-sized rock began on November 4 with the 230-foot (70-meter) dish antenna and lasted about two hours, with an additional four hours of tracking planned each day through Thursday, November 10.

Although the asteroid is in an orbit that regularly brings it to the vicinity of Earth, Venus and Mars, Tuesday's pass, at about 202,000 miles, is the closest it has come for at least the last 200 years.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, commonly known as "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes some of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

FMI: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/multimedia/yu55-20111107.html