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General information Radar observations at the Goldstone and Arecibo Observatory from March 3 to 7, 2001 during the asteroid's 7.8 million km approach to the Earth give a mean diameter of 1.1 – 1.4 km. Optical lightcurves by Petr Pravec show that the asteroid rotates every 2.1216 hours. Due to its short rotation period, 1950 DA is thought to be fairly dense (more than 3.0 g/cm³). If 1950 DA continues on its present orbit, it will approach near to the Earth on March 16, 2880. Over the intervening time, the rotation of the asteroid will cause its orbit to change (by the Yarkovsky effect). A preliminary analysis shows two possible pole directions (Giorgini, et al., 2002 "Asteroid 1950 DA's 2880 Encounter with Earth"). One trajectory misses the Earth by tens of millions of kilometers, while the other has an impact probability of 1⁄300. The radar observations are currently being reanalyzed, in combination with the optical lightcurves. The energy released by a collision with an object the size of 1950 DA would cause major effects on the climate and biosphere which would be devastating to human civilization. The discovery of the potential impact has heightened interest in asteroid deflection strategies. See also | ||||||||||
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