A space rendez-vous. 2007 TU24 greets the Earth. by Milota Sidorova

An asteroid called 2007 TU24 will runway around the Earth to within 1.4 lunar distances (334,000 miles). 2007 TU24 will appear on Tuesday, January 29 2008 at 08:33 UT. It will reach its perigee between constellations of Perseus and Cassiopeia, and will be visible for observers with amateur telescopes. The brightest appearance of the asteroid between 150 and 600 meters in diameter will come the next day. Then it will faint, till it disappears completely. TU24 has been discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona on October 11, 2007. Statistics suggest a number of 7,000 discovered and undiscovered near-Earth objects. Despite of this, an interval of passing so close to Earth is estimated on average every 5 years and a collision of that sized object with our planet is stated to be once in a 37,000 years. According to Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Objects Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2007 TU24 "has no chance of hitting, or affecting, Earth," Still 2007 TU24 is considered to be a potentially hazardous asteroid of this size until 2027. NASA made a plan of pointing the Goldstone planetary radar telescope on 2007 TU24 on Jan 23-24 and Arceibo planetary radar on Jan 27-28 and Feb 1-4. The 3D model of the object will be reconstructed later on, using the data from high-resolution telescope. Actually this won't be the only collision next week in our Solar system. The asteroid called 2007 WD5 is expected to pass our sisterly planet Mars, at a distance of approximately 16,000 miles just one day before 2007 TU24 meets the Earth.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_sc/earth_asteroid;_ylt=AqnSINzflKIlIsXil19f1K.s0NUE

by Milota Sidorova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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