Of about 9, 700 near-Earth asteroids discovered so far, about 5, 200 are thought to be Apollos.
"It certainly looks like it was a member of the Apollo class of asteroids, " he told BBC News.
The NEOP has identified 95% of asteroids of this most dangerous order, Chodas said.
What is more, such asteroids could, in principle, be identified and, with plausible technology, nudged aside.
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James Benson wants to send rocket ships to nearby asteroids and prospect them for precious metals.
The Moon acts like an asteroid magnet and has been aggregating asteroids for billions of years.
FORBES: The Moon is a Natural Platform for Asteroid Mining, Detection and Deflection
If you wonder how often asteroids have hit us, take a look at the Moon.
FORBES: The Moon is a Natural Platform for Asteroid Mining, Detection and Deflection
Like the Moon, asteroids can wax and wane, depending on their position relative to the Sun.
Until he starts talking about his latest ambition: to become a billionaire by mining asteroids.
Between 500, 000 to 1 million large asteroids near are near Earth and Mars.
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It makes sense that smaller asteroids pass Earth more frequently and, on average, closer.
Asteroids are large, irregular, rocky bodies orbiting the Sun roughly between Mars and Jupiter.
Near-Earth objects are comets or asteroids in orbits that allow them to enter Earth's neighborhood.
Those collisions are why the asteroids that ought to be in the space are missing.
In its journey through space, Earth is bombarded by a hailstorm of comets, meteors and asteroids.
In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century.
It is also considered bad form for discoverers to name asteroids after themselves or their pets.
They were able to do this by looking at those asteroids' orbits in detail.
Many asteroids are weakly bound piles of rubble, held together by their own minute gravitational attraction.
ECONOMIST: The American Association for the Advancement of Science
Other spacecraft have come close to asteroids but never nearly as close as Deep Space 1.
Scientists had generally believed that these were magnetised because they had broken away from magnetic asteroids.
Class M asteroids are composed of iron with large amounts of nickel, cobalt, and platinum group metals.
Until recently, the asteroids were largely a footnote in NASA's plans for exploration of the solar system.
Its discoverer had found so many asteroids that he had forgotten to propose names for them all.
Asteroids are divided into different groups such as Apollo, Aten, or Amor, based on the type of orbit they have.
Such asteroids would rapidly have adopted orbits that cut across those of the inner planets, including Earth.
If all such asteroids turn out to be harmless windmills, it will have been a wasted effort.
ECONOMIST: The American Association for the Advancement of Science
In one sense, those excess reserve dollars are trapped at the Fed, like asteroids endlessly circling the Sun.
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However, only about 10% of the 13, 000 - 20, 000 asteroids above the size of 140m are being tracked.
It turns out that our sister world the Moon is the best place to study and harvest asteroids.
FORBES: The Moon is a Natural Platform for Asteroid Mining, Detection and Deflection
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