Asteroid 2017 VF14 flew past Earth on November 13 at 0.80 LD
Featured image: The green line indicates the object's apparent motion relative to the Earth, and the bright green marks are the object's location at approximately one-hour intervals. The Moon's orbit is grey. The blue arrow points in the direction of Earth's motion and the yellow arrow points toward the Sun. Credit: Minor Planet Center.
A newly discovered asteroid designated 2017 VF14 flew past Earth at 0.80 LD / 0.00205 AU (~ 306 675 km / 190 559 miles) on November 13, 2017, two days after it was discovered. This is the 49th known asteroid to flyby Earth within 1 lunar distance since the start of the year and the 3rd within the past 9 days / this month.
2017 VF14 was first observed at Mt. Lemmon Survey at 09:19 UTC on November 15. It belongs to the Apollo group of asteroids and has an estimated diameter between 5.6 and 13 m (18 – 42 feet).
The object flew past Earth at a speed (relative to the Earth) of 11.92 km/s at 15:30 UTC ± < 00:01.
[ Ephemeris | Orbit Diagram | Orbital Elements | Physical Parameters | Close-Approach Data ]
As of November 14, there are 17 173 known near-Earth objects (NEOs) flying around our planet, 17 067 of them are asteroids (NEAs). Since the start of the year, we have discovered 1 662 NEOs, all of them are asteroids.
Reference
Asteroid 2017 VL2 at Minor Planet Center; CNEOS
I'm a dedicated researcher, journalist, and editor at The Watchers. With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, I specialize in hard science news, focusing on extreme weather, seismic and volcanic activity, space weather, and astronomy, including near-Earth objects and planetary defense strategies. You can reach me at teo /at/ watchers.news.
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