An asteroid slightly bigger than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier will zoom by Earth inside the orbit of the moon Tuesday, Nov. 8, but it poses no danger of smashing into our planet, scientists say.
The asteroid 2005 YU55, which is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) across, will make its closest approach to Earth at 6:28 p.m. EST (2328 GMT) today. At that point, the space rock will be traveling at about 29,000 mph and be about 201,700 miles (324,600 kilometers) from Earth — closer than the moon, which orbits 238,864 miles (384,499 km) from us on average.
In February 2010 it was rated 1 on the Torino Scale, indicating that a pass near the Earth is predicted that poses no unusual level of danger. On 19 April 2010, highly accurate radar targeting by the Arecibo radio telescope reduced uncertainties about the orbit by 50%.] This improvement eliminated any possibility of an impact with the Earth for the next 100 years. It was removed from the Sentry Risk Table on 22 April 2010 and as such it now has a rating of 0 on the Torino Scale.
On 8 November 2011 at 23:28 UT, the asteroid will safely pass within 0.85 lunar distances of the Earth. A lunar distance of 0.85 is also 0.00217 AU (325,000 km; 202,000 mi)] On 9 November 2011 at 07:13 UT, the asteroid will pass 0.00160 AU (239,000 km; 149,000 mi) from the moon. During the close approach, the asteroid should reach about apparent magnitude 11,] and may be visible to expert observers using high-end binoculars with an objective lens of 80 mm or larger. Since the gibbous moon will interfere with the viewing, amateur observers trying to visually locate the asteroid will require a telescope with an aperture of 6 inches (15 centimeters) or larger.
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