27 December 2004

Although it is supposed to be clear tonight it has been and is supposed to continue to be windy. With temperatures around 20 and dropping the wind chill is down in the single digits and dropping and not conducive to outdoor astronomy. So I checked on the Internet for any changes in the predictions for asteroid 2004 MN₄. The number of observations have more than doubled since last night, now including some historic data from before the asteroid's discovery in June 2004. The new data has better defined the asteroid's orbit and reduced it's risk greatly and it is now classed as a Torino 4 object.

Date	Observations	Diameter m	Mass kg	Chance of Impact	% Chance of Impact	Torino Scale
23Dec04	60			1:233	0.429	2
	64	440	1.2x1011	1:62	1.6	4
25Dec04				1:42	2.4
	101	390	8.3x1010	1:45	2.2
26Dec04	169	380	7.5x1010	1:45	2.2
27Dec04	176	390	7.9x1010	1:37	2.7
	243				0.002	0