2011 MD

2011 MD is a near-Earth asteroid.

2011 MD was discovered on June 22, 2011 by LINEAR, where he was initially held for space debris.

On 27 June 2011 around 17:00 UTC 2011 MD Earth came close in the South Pacific between Australia and Africa until about 12,000 km.

After Erdpassage initially showed an observed path deviation of 20 arc seconds to the calculated position. The reason is that 2011 MD penetrated so deeply into the gravitational field of the earth, that not only the mass but also the otherwise always neglected flattening of the earth had a measurable impact on its orbit. This effect is incorporated in the software for the calculation of near-Earth asteroids passages according to this passage in the future.