What I find scary is that they found this
6 days before it's close encounter.

2000 YA

This object, discovered by LONEOS on Dec.
16, will pass about 0.0049 AU from the earth
on Dec. 22.28 UT (see MPEC 2000-Y03) at V
about 15.

R. P. Binzel and A. S. Rivkin, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology; and A. W. Harris, Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, report that 0.5-1.0-
micron spectra of 2000 YA, obtained on Dec.
17.2 UT using the Palomar 5-m reflector, reveal
an S-type asteroid reflectance. For an assumed
S-type albedo of 0.2 and H = 23.7, the estimated
size is about 50 m.

Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams

Get the ephemeris at:

Ephemeris Generator

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eph?sstr=134187&group=all&s_sb= Search&c_loc=500%3BGeocentric%3B0.%2C0.%2C0.%2Cm&c_time= %2B20001219000000.000%2C%2B20010103000000.000%2C0%2C1%2Cd%2C% 2CC&c_quan=0108c0101%2CJHA%2C%2C0

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), December 21, 2000

Answers

Yes, this is very scary!
There's a lot of sky out there!
And there's not so many folks looking out in every direction.
And 50 meters is not a big hunk to resolve in that big open void we travel though.

Thanks for the heads up

-- (perry@ofuzzy1.com), December 21, 2000.

Nice to see you back, spider. :)

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), December 21, 2000.