Travelers In The Night

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard was observing with our team's 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon in Arizona when he discovered a relatively large space rock, 2017 FD157, which can theoretically come closer to the Earth's surface than the communications satellites. We don't have enough data to predict when it will make a very close approach to us. What we do know is that 2017 FD157's orbit and that of the Earth nearly intersect coming to about Earth diameter of each other. For 2017 FD157 to make a very close approach to our planet, both of them would need to be at the position on their respective paths which are closest to each other. If history is a guide, it is likely that additional observations will reveal that 2017 FD157 will never impact the Earth. About once every 11,000 years one of its size impacts the Earth with an atmospheric impact energy of several of large hydrogen bombs creating a crater a mile in diameter. If in an extremely unlikely turn of events, 2017 FD157, appears likely to impac