Asteroid 1998 QE2 — Asteroid Big Enough To Cause Extinction Event Passes By The Earth On May 31 2013

An asteroid big enough to cause an extinction event if it were to impact the Earth will pass by us at a distance of about 3.6 million miles on May 31, 2013. That’s about the distance that theEarth is from the Moon, times 15. The asteroid — asteroid 1998 QE2 — isn’t any danger to us anytime in the near-future, but it is an interesting opportunity, giving researchers the chance to observe a 230-foot — or larger — asteroid at relatively close range.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target at Goldstone and Arecibo and we expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface features,” said radar astronomer Lance Benner, the principal investigator for the Goldstone radar observations from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Whenever an asteroid approaches this closely, it provides an important scientific opportunity to study it in detail to understand its size, shape, rotation, surface features, and what they can tell us about its origin. We will also use new radar measurements of the asteroid’s distance and velocity to improve our calculation of its orbit and compute its motion farther into the future than we could otherwise.”

The asteroid’s closest approach will be on May 31, at 1:59 pm Pacific time, or 4:59 pm Eastern time. This is the closest that the asteroid will approach the planet in at least the next two hundred years. The asteroid was discovered only very recently, on August 19, 1998, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program near Socorro, New Mexico.


Current estimates state that the asteroid is likely around 1.7 miles. With radar, “the Goldstone antenna could resolve features on the asteroid as small as 12 feet (3.75 meters) across, even from 4 million miles away.”

“It is tremendously exciting to see detailed images of this asteroid for the first time,” said Benner. “With radar we can transform an object from a point of light into a small world with its own unique set of characteristics. In a real sense, radar imaging of near-Earth asteroids is a fundamental form of exploring a whole class of solar system objects.”

The press release from NASA continues:

Asteroids, which are always exposed to the sun, can be shaped like almost anything under it. Those previously imaged by radar and spacecraft have looked like dog bones, bowling pins, spheroids, diamonds, muffins, and potatoes. To find out what 1998 QE2 looks like, stay tuned. Between May 30 and June 9, radar astronomers using NASA’s 230-foot-wide (70 meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, are planning an extensive campaign of observations. The two telescopes have complementary imaging capabilities that will enable astronomers to learn as much as possible about the asteroid during its brief visit near Earth.

NASA places a high priority on tracking asteroids and protecting our home planet from them. In fact, the U.S. has the most robust and productive survey and detection program for discovering near-Earth objects. To date, U.S. assets have discovered over 98 percent of the known NEOs.

In 2012, the NEO budget was increased from $6 million to $20 million. Literally dozens of people are involved with some aspect of near-Earth object (NEO) research across NASA and its centers. Moreover, there are many more people involved in researching and understanding the nature of asteroids and comets, including those that come close to Earth, plus those who are trying to find and track them in the first place.

In related news, in only a couple of years (2016) NASA will be launching a mission/robotic probe to investigate “one of the most potentially hazardous of the known NEOs. The OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid (101955) Bennu will be a pathfinder for future spacecraft designed to perform reconnaissance on any newly-discovered threatening objects. Aside from monitoring potential threats, the study of asteroids and comets enables a valuable opportunity to learn more about the origins of our solar system, the source of water on Earth, and even the origin of organic molecules that lead to the development of life.”

And NASA also recently announced their plans to capture an asteroid and then relocate it to a point near the Moon, where it would be easier for humans to explore it. “Using game-changing technologies advanced by the Administration, this mission would mark an unprecedented technological achievement that raises the bar of what humans can do in space. Capturing and redirecting an asteroid will integrate the best of NASA’s science, technology and human exploration capabilities and draw on the innovation of America’s brightest scientists and engineers.”

6 thoughts on “Asteroid 1998 QE2 — Asteroid Big Enough To Cause Extinction Event Passes By The Earth On May 31 2013”

    1. nature bats last .com . asteroid or no asteroid you have no future , start working on yer bucket list now.

  1. Don’t worry, compared to asteroid, 2005 YU 55 (bigger then Apophis) which came at a distance less than that of distance of Moon from Earth, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8872862/... This was in November 2012 and still then we are leading a normal life on Earth. So let us not be afraid of 1998 QE 2 asteroid whose closest approach will be 5.8 million Kms away from Earth, that is nearly 15 times the Earth-Mon distance.

  2. Don’t worry, compared to asteroid, 2005 YU 55 (bigger then Apophis) which came at a distance less than that of distance of Moon from Earth, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8872862/... This was in November 2012 and still then we are leading a normal life on Earth. So let us not be afraid of 1998 QE 2 asteroid whose closest approach will be 5.8 million Kms away from Earth, that is nearly 15 times the Earth-Mon distance.

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