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1991 BA
Small risk–listed near-Earth asteroid
Small risk–listed near-Earth asteroid
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| minorplanet | yes |
| name | 1991 BA |
| background | #FFC2E0 |
| discovery_ref | |
| discovered | 18 January 1991 |
| discoverer | Spacewatch |
| discovery_site | Kitt Peak Obs. |
| mpc_name | 1991 BA |
| mp_category | ApolloNEO |
| orbit_ref | |
| epoch | 18 January 1991 (JD 2448274.5) |
| uncertainty | 9 |
| observation_arc | 4.6 hours |
| aphelion | |
| perihelion | |
| semimajor | |
| eccentricity | |
| period | yr ( days) |
| mean_anomaly | |
| mean_motion | / day |
| inclination | |
| asc_node | |
| arg_peri | |
| moid | 0.0003 AU0.1 LD |
| dimensions | 5–10 m |
| abs_magnitude | 28.6 |
1991 BA is a sub-kilometer asteroid, classified as near-Earth object of the Apollo group that was first observed by Spacewatch on 18 January 1991, and passed within 160,000 km of Earth.
Description
1991 BA is approximately 5 to in diameter and is listed on the Sentry Risk Table. It follows a highly eccentric (0.68), low-inclination (2.0°) orbit of 3.3 years duration, ranging between 0.71 and 3.7 AU from the Sun. 1991 BA was, at the time of its discovery, the smallest and closest confirmed asteroid outside of Earth's atmosphere. 1991 BA is too faint to be observed except during close approaches to Earth and is considered lost.
Possible impact
The asteroid has a very short 5-hour observation arc that makes future predictions of its position unreliable. Virtual clones of the asteroid that fit the uncertainty region in the known trajectory use to show a 1 in 290,000 chance that the asteroid could impact Earth on 2023 January 18. It is estimated that an impact would produce an upper atmosphere air burst equivalent to 16 kt TNT, Asteroid was an object of similar size that was discovered less than a day before its impact on Earth on October 7, 2008, and produced a fireball and meteorite strewn field in the Sudan. The 18 January 2023 virtual impactor did not occur.
| Date | Impact | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| probability | ||||||
| (1 in) | JPL Horizons | |||||
| nominal geocentric | ||||||
| distance (AU) | NEODyS | |||||
| nominal geocentric | ||||||
| distance (AU) | MPC | |||||
| nominal geocentric | ||||||
| distance (AU) | Find_Orb | |||||
| nominal geocentric | ||||||
| distance (AU) | uncertainty | |||||
| region | ||||||
| (3-sigma) | ||||||
| 2023-01-18 | 3.9 AU | 3.9 AU | 2.4 AU | 2.8 AU | ± 841 million km |
There is a 1 in a million chance of impacting Earth on 19 January 2114.
References
|url-status=live
|author2-link=David L. Rabinowitz |author3-link=Brian G. Marsden
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221109195513/https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons_batch.cgi?batch=1&COMMAND=%271991+BA%27&START_TIME=%272023-01-18%27&STOP_TIME=%272023-01-19%27&STEP_SIZE=%272%20day%27&QUANTITIES=%2720,39%27 |archive-date=2022-11-09 |url-status=live
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221109200240/https://newton.spacedys.com/neodys/index.php?pc=1.1.3.1&n=1991BA&oc=500&y0=2023&m0=01&d0=18&y1=2023&m1=01&d1=18&ti=1.0&tiu=days |archive-date=2022-11-09 |url-status=live
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221109200931/https://www.projectpluto.com/cgi-bin/fo/fo_serve.cgi?obj_name=1991+BA&year=2022-01-18&n_steps=1&stepsize=1 |archive-date=2022-11-09 |url-status=live
References
- This is a little less than half the distance to the [[Moon]]. With a 5-hour [[observation arc]] the asteroid has a poorly constrained orbit and is considered [[Lost minor planet|lost]]. It could be a member of the [[Beta Taurids]].[[Peter Jenniskens]] Meteor Showers and their Parent Comets pg 463 fig 25.7
- "Asteroid Fast Facts".
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