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An unknown space rock the size of a small cabin, dubbed VT4 2020, set a record on November 13 as it passed just under 250 miles above the South Pacific.
The asteroid was detected by the survey of Asteroid Land Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii in the early hours of Saturday morning, November 14, just 15 hours after the approach.
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This is not uncommon for fast-moving ones, especially asteroids that reach Earth from our blind spot towards the sun, such as 2020 VT4.
Asteroid-2020 VT4 is estimated to be 5 to 10 meters wide, about the size of a small one. The Earth did not occupy the same space as the perielic point of the asteroid, which occurred only 20 hours before the passage of our planet, reports Universe Today.
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This sets a record for documented non-meteoric asteroid passage closest to Earth. This record has already been broken once this year, with asteroid 2020 HQ passing 3,000 kilometers from the Earth’s surface on August 16.
Unfortunately, the close passage of asteroid 2020 VT4 appears to have had no witnesses; the closest approach occurred at 17:20 UTC on Friday 13 November during the South Pacific near the Pitcairn Islands under the daytime skies and followed the edge of the Earth’s shadow outward.
No satellite (including the Space Station, which was located in the South Atlantic at the time) was affected by the passage of VT4 2020, although it certainly passed through the sphere of geostationary satellites and touched the ring of low Earth orbit.
This step actually substantially altered the orbit of 2020 VT4. Inland, the asteroid was in a 549-day orbit around the sun, tilted 13 degrees to the ecliptic. His meeting with the Earth has deflected it on a 315-day orbit tilted 10.2 degrees from the ecliptic plane.
With a perihelion now within the orbit of Venus, this actually changes the 2020 VT4 classification from a NEO Apollo ground cruiser to an Aten asteroid.
2020 VT4 will visit Earth on November 13, 2052, with a much more distant pass, approximately 2.5 million kilometers.
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