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2007 FT3

Lost risk-listed hazardous near-Earth asteroid

2007 FT3 is a lost asteroid with a short observation arc of 1.2 days that cannot be recovered with targeted observations and awaits serendipitous survey observations. It has a poorly constrained orbit and has not been seen since 2007. It was first observed on 20 March 2007 when the asteroid was estimated to be 0.19 ± 0.01 astronomical units (28.4 ± 1.5 million kilometres) from Earth and had a solar elongation of 107 degrees. 2007 FT3 is the fourth largest asteroid with better than a 1-in-2 million cumulative chance of impacting Earth after (29075) 1950 DA, 1979 XB, and 101955 Bennu. With a cumulative Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale of, 3.06, the poorly known orbit and assumed size place 2007 FT3 eighth on an unconstrained listing of the Sentry Risk Table.

01Potential impacts

Possible impacts were projected for 2 October 2013, 3 October 2019, and 3 October 2024. Since the asteroid has a short observation arc and the uncertainty in the orbit of the asteroid intersects Earth's orbit, simulations could not rule out the asteroid and Earth being at the same point in space on any of those dates. None of these impacts happened, nor was the asteroid detected near those dates.

Potential impacts (past and future)
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
2013-10-021.9 billion0.94 AU (141 million km)1.0 AU (150 million km)1.1 AU (160 million km)1.2 AU (180 million km)± 330 million km
2019-10-0311 million0.93 AU (139 million km)0.95 AU (142 million km)1.3 AU (190 million km)1.4 AU (210 million km)± 620 million km
2024-10-0311 million1.7 AU (250 million km)1.7 AU (250 million km)2.0 AU (300 million km)2.0 AU (300 million km)± 500 million km
Watch videos about 2007 FT3Explainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article 2007 FT3, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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