A list of known near-Earth asteroid close approaches less than 1 lunar distance (384,400 km or 0.00256 AU) from Earth in 2008.[note 1]
Rows highlighted red indicate objects which were not discovered until after closest approach
Rows highlighted yellow indicate objects discovered less than 24 hours before closest approach
Rows highlighted green indicate objects discovered more than one week before closest approach
Rows highlighted turquoise indicate objects discovered more than 7 weeks before closest approach
Rows highlighted blue indicate objects discovered more than one year before closest approach (i.e. objects successfully cataloged on a previous orbit, rather than being detected during final approach)
Apart from 2008 TC3, this list does not include any of the other objects that collided with earth in 2008 as they were not discovered in advance, but were recorded by sensors designed to detect detonation of nuclear devices.[note 2]
This sub-section visualises the warning times of the close approaches listed in the above table, depending on the size of the asteroid. The sizes of the charts show the relative sizes of the asteroids to scale. For comparison, the approximate size of a person is also shown. This is based the absolute magnitude of each asteroid, an approximate measure of size based on brightness.
Abs Magnitude 30 and greater
(size of a person for comparison)
An example list of near-Earth asteroids that passed more than 1 lunar distance (384,400 km or 0.00256 AU) from Earth in 2008.