Discovered by NEAT (644) Aphelion 4.6616 AU (697.37 Gm) Discovered 5 October 2004 Asteroid group Apollo asteroid | Discovery date October 5, 2004 Semi-major axis 2.7452 AU (410.68 Gm) Absolute magnitude 21.8 | |
Minor planet category Apollo asteroid,
Near-Earth object,
Potentially hazardous object Perihelion 0.82890 AU (124.002 Gm) Discoverer Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking | ||
2004 TN1 is an Apollo near-Earth asteroid and potentially hazardous object discovered on 5 October 2004 by NEAT at Mount Palomar. It has the fourth smallest geocentric Minimum Orbital Intersection Distance of any asteroid, after 2008 TC3 which exploded in Earth's atmosphere in 2008, 1994 GV, and 2014 AA which also impacted the Earth in 2014. The asteroid, however, will not make any significant close approaches to Earth in at least the next century.
However, its orbit is poorly determined, with only 58 observations over 30 days between October 5 and November 4, 2004, yielding an orbital certainty of 6, with 0 being a well-determined orbit and 9 being an extremely poorly determined orbit. More observations would be needed to determine whether the asteroid may impact the earth in the next several hundred years.
Absolute magnitude estimates guess the asteroid to be approximately 115–260 meters (380–850 feet) in diameter. A theoretical impact into porous rock at 45 degrees, assuming the asteroid to have a density of 2 g/cm3, would yield a crater between 1.7 and 3.2 kilometers wide, slightly larger than Meteor Crater in Arizona.