Asteroid and Earth orbits intersect (click for large view)

In this plot, the asteroid is the yellow dot, and Earth is green; the two orbits intersect twice per year.

A preliminary orbit calculation shows that 2012 DA14 has a very Earth-like orbit with a period of 366.24 days, just one more day than our terrestrial year, and it ‘jumps’ inside and outside of the path of Earth two times per year. While an impact with Earth has been ruled out on the asteroid’s next visit, astronomers will use that close approach for more studies and calculate the Earth and Moon’s gravitational effects on it.