2004 FU 162
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Asteroid 2004 FU 162 |
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| Properties of the orbit ( animation ) | |
| Orbit type | Aten type |
| Major semi-axis | 0.826 AU |
| eccentricity | 0.392 |
| Perihelion - aphelion | 0.503 AU - 1.151 AU |
| Inclination of the orbit plane | 4.164 ° |
| Sidereal period | 274 d 14 h |
| Mean orbital velocity | 32.756 km / s |
| Physical Properties | |
| Medium diameter | approx. 6 m |
| Albedo | ? |
| Rotation period | ? |
| Absolute brightness | 28.68 mag |
| Spectral class | ? |
| history | |
| Explorer | LINEAR |
| Date of discovery | March 31, 2004 |
| Source: Unless otherwise stated, the data comes from JPL Small-Body Database Browser . The affiliation to an asteroid family is automatically determined from the AstDyS-2 database . Please also note the note on asteroid items. | |
2004 FU 162 is a six meter high meteoroid that approached Earth on March 31, 2004 to within 6,500 km.
2004 FU 162 was discovered just a few hours before the time of closest approach by a robot telescope from the LINEAR project. LINEAR (Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research) is a NASA funded project to search for near-earth asteroids. The minor planet could be observed by LINEAR for 44 minutes.
Due to the earth's gravitational field , the object was deflected by 20 degrees from its orbit when it flew by and has since only required nine months to orbit the sun and no longer around a year.
If the meteoroid had hit the earth, due to its small size it might have burned up in the atmosphere and not have reached the ground.