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(meteorobs) Another close call



Despite all the publicity and various discussions about asteroids and
comets hitting the Earth, the media seems to have missed the fact that we
experienced a close approach on February 9. Asteroid 1997 CD17, which was
discovered on February 9.35 by observers at Mauna Kea, passed 0.0074 AU
from Earth on February 9.8, that's just over 687 thousand miles. This ranks
as the 15th closest approach of an asteroid to Earth on record. (For the
record, the closest approach was asteroid 1994 XM1 on December 9.8, 1994,
which passed about 70 thousand miles from us).

Asteroid 1997 CD17 was confirmed by Spacewatch on February 9.58 and Mauna
Kea picked it up again on February 10.19 and watched it until February
10.38. The asteroid had travelled over 30 degrees in a 24 hour period.

The official orbit was first released late yesterday, but I suspect a
preliminary orbit is what enabled Mauna Kea to recover the asteroid on the
10th, and was possibly what enabled Spacewatch to detect it on the 9th.

Gary