Steve Willner wrote:

In article 4aVWc.8723$VY.1244@trndny09,
Rudolph_X writes:

In the quote that I gave above, preceeding the link to the artilce, the
scientists says, "...the orbital change was quite extraordinary. 2004
FU162 was deflected by about 20 degrees because of the Earth's gravity.
I've never seen anything like that before."


Read carefully. The scientist said the encounter deflected the orbit
20 degrees. He also said this change was unusually large. However,
he said nothing whatever about a predicted path.


He didn't give an explanation of why the asteroid appeared to have
changed the 'predicted' course.


Probably because the actual path agreed with the predicted one.


Then why would he have said, "The orbital change was quite
extraordinary," and, "I've never seen anything like that before." These
words seem to indicate that something unexpected happened regarding the
orbital path.