Just few minutes ago a small asteroid (19 mt. diameter) whose denomination is 2021 GT3 has passed “close” to the Earth, distant 257,000 Km only, so closer to our planet than the Moon. Loading the entire catalog of Asteroids with an application of mine, Cerbero, I noted that this event is present using Astorb.dat (Lowell Observatory) but completely ignored by Mpcorb.dat (Minor Planet Center). This leaves me a little perplexed because I thought the MPC data were first hand.
EDIT:
Now the two files agree that the closest asteroid to Earth is 2021 GM1, but are reporting two completely different orbits. Who’s right?
Hi
Strange indeed. The asteroid can be found on MPC site https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K21/K21GD5.html
Maybe a problem regarding the name 2007 GT3 in the database MPCCORB and 2021 GT3 in ASTORB ?
Regards.
Hi,
I’ve manually checked the file MPCORB.DAT and 2021 GT3 is actually missing. However Cerbero gives with its data closest to the Earth the asteroid 2021 GM1 (1,016,059 Km from Earth) therefore an issue related to the name only looks unlikely. A further fact is that MPCORB.DAT reports a timestamp 2021-04-05 even if downloaded today.
Buongiorno.
Dovrebbe essere sul sito sotto riportato.
Mi piacerebbe dare un’occhiata al suo software “Cerbero”. E’ scaricabile? Grazie
Luigi
https://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/MPCORB/Unusual.txt
K21G03T 26.37 0.15 K20CH 269.37462 295.44166 19.85346 4.36804 0.7211577 0.55508199 1.4663286 7 E2021-GF3 28 1 4 days 0.58 M-v 3Ek MPCLINUX 0803 2021 GT3 20210410
Salve,
poi effettivamente è arrivato il 12 aprile sul file principale. Diciamo che c’è stata una mancata pubblicazione di aggiornamenti di MPCORB.DAT grosso modo dal 6 all’11 aprile, poi il 12 hanno emesso un file nuovo.
Cerbero è ancora piuttosto primitivo, qualche aggiustamento e pubblico anche quello, non c’è problema. 🙂
Saluti
Alberto