Asteroid 2009 DO111 on its way!

ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

www.hohmanntransfer.com...

www.hohmanntransfer.com...

Now forgive me because I'm not so "astronomically inclined" but so far this is what I gather:

Apparently they discovered this one on February 22nd but it was posted yesterday-Its got an LD of 1.2....thats quite close!
About 32,000 miles away if I am correct?

I couldn't find anything on spaceweather so far.....
Is it not coming from the same area as Comet Lulin?
Thoughts????? More information?????

I checked spaceweather too and don't see it.
There is a close fly-by tonight however,(0.2LD)2009FH

1 LD = 384,401 km

[edit on 17-3-2009 by smurfy]

reply to post by awake_awoke


The first possible impact isn't for 60 years, and none of the possible impacts are anywhere close to likely at this point. Right now it seems to be about 1.5 million miles away, looks like it will get to about 1 LD on march 20th.

[edit on 17-3-2009 by ngchunter]

March 20th seems to be it closest approach at 0.0031 AU according to the jpl orbit diagram, which would still leave it little over 300,000 miles away.

300,000 miles is a far cry from this!

The closest observed asteroid to pass Earth so far has been 2004 FU162, a 5- to 10-metre rock that skimmed by Earth in 2004, flying just 6500 kilometres above the surface.

reply to post by ngchunter


Actually, we don't know when the next possible impact will be since we haven't discovered all of the asteroids yet. We only know of about a third of them.

Yes, 1.2 LD isn't that close. We don't have to worry about 2009 D0111, but 2009 FH is something to keep an eye on. That one will pass within 0.2 LD tomorrow on March 18 but it's size is only between 13 m - 29 m and only a relative velocity of 6.54 km/s. Not much of a threat.

reply to post by Curious_Agnostic


I'm talking about the impact possibilities for this particular asteroid, not in general.

Originally posted by Curious_Agnostic
reply to post by ngchunter

 

Actually, we don't know when the next possible impact will be since we haven't discovered all of the asteroids yet. We only know of about a third of them.

You mean to say that tomorrow, we could find outselves facing an ELE, without warning? That would suck.

reply to post by OmegaPoint


That has always been a possibility, and it could happen now, although the chances of that are extremely small. In a worst case scenario, one might approach us from the direction of the sun, making it hard to spot till it was too late.

At least we have a better chance of spotting large rocks if they come from another direction, although it's by no means guaranteed that we will spot them even if they are capable of an ELE.

Even if we did spot one coming our way in the near future (perhaps 5-10 years), there would be little we could do anyway.

Either way, it's unlikely to happen during our lifetimes...

Originally posted by Curious_Agnostic
Actually, we don't know when the next possible impact will be since we haven't discovered all of the asteroids yet. We only know of about a third of them.

It always amuses me when people say this...

If we have no idea how many there are, how do they determine we know about a third of them? We could know about nine tenths of them or one thousandth of them....

With that out of my system....good find awake_awoke.

We got one this time as it hit us:

A close call as far as finding the bad boy.
Yeah, its the close ones that count.
Later for Bruce Wills fans, NASA can't save us.