Motion of the Dangerous Asteroid 1997 XF₁₁

• Autorzy: Sitarski, G.
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

Minor planet 1997 XF₁₁, discovered in December 1997, is moving in the heliocentric orbit which almost intersects the Earth orbit. In October 2028 the asteroid will approach the Earth to within 0.006 a.u. We improved the asteroid's orbit on the base of 151 astrometric observations from 1990-1998. To investigate the long-term motion of the asteroid we randomly selected 500 sets of orbital elements and numerically integrated the equations of motion by the recurrent power series. We followed evolution of minimum distances between orbits of 1997 XF₁₁ and the Earth for moments of consecutive passages of the asteroid through its descending node. We found that only in 2042 the minimum distance between orbits of both planets could be smaller than the Earth radius. However, the asteroid will pass through its descending node in July 2042 while a collision with the Earth could happen during the October encounter. After 2042 the minimum distance between orbits of both planets will be permanently growing up, and hence we estimate that during the next several thousand years collision with the Earth will be impossible. We also investigated the asteroid's motion before 1990. We found that past close approaches of 1997 XF₁₁ to the Earth occurred in 1971 to within 0.032 a.u. and in 1957 to within 0.015 a.u. We calculated ephemerides of the asteroid for those past approaches aiming at finding some old observations of the minor planet. We have also studied accuracy of prediction of the future motion of 1997 XF₁₁ based, however, on 142 observations of the asteroid from 1997/98 only. We found that in that case possibility of collision during 2030-2050, although possible, is completely unpredictable.

Słowa kluczowe

EN

minor planets; asteroids

• Czasopismo: Acta Astronomica
• Rocznik: 1999
• Tom: Vol. 49, No. 1
• Strony: 103--112
• Opis fizyczny: Bibliogr. 4 poz., rys. tab., wykr.

Twórcy

autor

Sitarski, G.

• Institute of Physics, University in Białystok, Lipowa 41, 15-424 Białystok, Poland,
• Space Research Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, Bartycka 18A, 00-716 Warsaw, Poland

Bibliografia

• Bielicki, M., and Sitarski, G. 1991, Acta Astron., 41, 309.
• Bretagnon, P., and Francou, G. 1988, Astron. Astrophys., 202, 309.
• Sitarski, G. 1968, Acta Astron., 18, 171.
• Sitarski, G. 1998, Acta Astron., 48, 547.