(144898) 2004 VD17

Template: Infobox Asteroid / Maintenance / Error 2

(144898) 2004 VD17 is a small near-Earth asteroid from the Apollo - type by the automatic sky monitoring LINEAR ( Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research) was discovered on November 7, 2004. Because of its optical brightness of the diameter of the asteroid is estimated at 500 to 1,200 meters. He arrived in 2006 in the headlines of the tabloid press, as was temporarily a small risk of an impact on the earth.

History of risk

The first observations in 2004 and 2005 allowed due to the increasing distance, only the prediction that the asteroid will come close on May 4, 2102 of the earth, but with a widely varying distribution for the location of the web. An impact would release an energy equal to the explosive power of about 15,000 megatons of TNT, and lead to continental devastation. 2006, the asteroid was better observable again, the distribution was narrower and much higher, thereby increasing the likelihood that the Earth would be taken, firstly increased. Between February and May 2006, he was ranked at the Turin scale with two. 2004 VD17 was so after the second Apophis asteroid, which reached a value of about 1 to this risk scale.

Thereafter, the distribution tightened to a narrow region adjacent to the Earth. In early 2007 the encounter on the Palermo scale a risk assessment of -4.91, which meant that the impact nearly 100,000 times less likely than was the so-called background belief that the earth until May 4, 2102 of any, at least as large object is hit. Meanwhile, the impact could be totally excluded and 2004 VD17 be removed from the list of risks - a typical course.