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REPLY TO THREAD
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Subject
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Comet Elenin and asteroid 2005 YU55
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Original Message
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[link to spaceobs.org]
I have received many questions as to whether these two objects may collide, or whether they might come so close to one another that they can change their orbits to head directly for Earth. Categorically – NO. Minimum distance between the two objects will happen September 13 (three days after the comet passes perihelion), and that distance is 0.1688 a.u., on the order of 25,252,000 km – 10 million km less than the distance of closest approach of Comet Elenin to our planet, which will take place October 16.
As you know, May 21 was the closest approach of Comet C/2010 X1 to asteroid 1999 RQ176; the objects passed all of 225,830 km from each other, more than 100 times closer than the minimum distance between Comet Elenin and asteroid 2005 YU55! After that encounter, new position measuments of the comet and asteroid 1999 RQ176 were obtained. On such a short timescale no influence was noted, which means it is practically nil. For that reason, we can absolutely precisely say that Comet Elenin and asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass by one another and it will not even be noticeable!
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