Asteroid Near Earth July 10, 0.0315 AU from Earth

Wow, 0.0315 AU is pretty darn close isnt it ?

Source : Nasa

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/80af7c01784c.gif[/atsimg]

It was a pretty small one, but still, some 'heads up' maybe could be nice !!

[edit on 29/7/2009 by ChemBreather]

reply to post by ChemBreather


I guess close is a relative enough thing albeit not a specialist myself...
However it genuinely makes you wonder how we are here for so long without being hit...

S & F for observing and catching up whereas noone else noticed around here.

Not so close.
Almost 3 million miles. 12 times as far away as the Moon.

[edit on 7/29/2009 by Phage]

Originally posted by Phage
Not so close.
2.79 million miles.

I pretty much suspected such an order of "proximity".
In any other case it would be big news long ago.

However it is never a bad thing to have an eye high in the skies
Sky is a beautifull and amazing thing.

reply to post by GEORGETHEGREEK


If you look around the globe, and you know what to look for, it is a wonder sometimes...

Scars of collisions dating back 10's of millions of years. Though, the older the system gets, the less liklihood of collision with extinction level event type rocks. Their all getting used up. ...and apparently having that great big ole Jupiter sittin' out there doesn't hurt either...

reply to post by ChemBreather


AU is "sun distance". LD is lunar (moon) distance. 0.0315 AU is 12.6 LD, which means it passed Earth 12.6 times the distance to the moon. It's actually not that close. If it passes near or below 1 LD, then it's a close pass.

reply to post by seagull


Jupiter is a blessing! However i am a bit resrved on the "getting used up" statement....

The sky is not a closed system nor a finite one...
As such statistics are not of much use.

Thank God for Jupiter!

It a world of wonders!

Near HIT. If it was a near miss it would of hit us and not missed.

Yep! I remember that one.....lol! Seems close until you find out what AU & LD stand for! ie. Lunar Distance is the mileage between Earth and Moon, about 384,000 miles I believe.

I always keep an eye on the NEO site. Unfortunately, I think that if we were ever in any real danger of facing an impact, that data would probably not appear on the site.

What I really wonder about are the objects that are not being recorded there. Another instance of the government providing false security to it's people! It's like ...... "hey, look at all the stuff we found...and not one of these is ever, ever going to be a threat". Sorry, I don't buy it. One day we will take a significant hit and it will be horrendous. Let's just hope it's not in our lifetime. Anyone who did survive something like that probably would wish they hadn't!

It's also quite disturbing that the gov't decided to cease scientists use of government monitoring equipment in the search for NEO's. That seems extremely suspicious (and a bit frightening)! What don't they want to be seen?!

Originally posted by seagull
reply to post by GEORGETHEGREEK

 

If you look around the globe, and you know what to look for, it is a wonder sometimes...

Scars of collisions dating back 10's of millions of years. Though, the older the system gets, the less liklihood of collision with extinction level event type rocks. Their all getting used up. ...and apparently having that great big ole Jupiter sittin' out there doesn't hurt either...

Heck, just look at the Moon to get a good idea as to how many times the Earth has been hit.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Thank God that besides Jupider we have an atmosphere millions of times thicker than that of the moon!

reply to post by GEORGETHEGREEK


True enough. But the rocks native to the system are being used up, though there are in all liklihood still many, many rocks more than large enough to remove us from existance.

Kinda humbling, isn't it? for all our accomplishments as a race, we could be removed in a blink of an eye, and the cosmos would never be the wiser...

Damn.

Originally posted by Phage
Not so close.
Almost 3 million miles. 12 times as far away as the Moon.

[edit on 7/29/2009 by Phage]

Thanks for clearing that up, I thought it looked so darn close..

0.0 au even, I was thinking 0.5 is half the distance to the sun etc..

Do you perhaps know if it can be seen Phage ?
I have this telescope thing, would be nice to take a glance at it ..

[edit on 29/7/2009 by ChemBreather]

Originally posted by GEORGETHEGREEK
reply to post by ChemBreather

 

I guess close is a relative enough thing albeit not a specialist myself...
However it genuinely makes you wonder how we are here for so long without being hit...

S & F for observing and catching up whereas noone else noticed around here.

Year of atronomy seems to pan out..
Jupiter gets smacked, Venus glowing and now this..Are there more I wonder, oh yea, we had the Lulin too..

Originally posted by GEORGETHEGREEK
reply to post by seagull

 

Jupiter is a blessing! However i am a bit resrved on the "getting used up" statement....

The sky is not a closed system nor a finite one...
As such statistics are not of much use.

Thank God for Jupiter!

It a world of wonders!

Yup, Jupiter is the star outfielder of our solar system!

Second Line.

[edit on 29-7-2009 by lucentenigma]

Apophis is the one we should watch out of all the ones we do know about. Friday the 13th 2029. Although i think the risk has gone down somewhat it seems to close for my liking.

In October 2005 it was predicted that the asteroid will pass just below the altitude of geosynchronous satellites, which are at 35,786 kilometres (22,236 mi). Such a close approach by an asteroid of this size is expected to occur only every 1,300 years or so. Apophis’s brightness will peak at magnitude 3.3, with a maximum angular speed of 42° per hour. The maximum apparent angular diameter will be ~2 arcseconds, so that it will be barely resolved by telescopes not equipped with adaptive optics.

en.wikipedia.org...



[edit on 29-7-2009 by pazcat]

damn -- too close for comfort. Sure WOULD be nice to have some heads-up. But I suppose this one was a tiddler.

reply to post by pazcat


Based on my experience of science, one that i am very fond of, i would say that although we have developed in a lightning fast pace for the last 100 years or so we have yet a very long way to go.

Calculations on Apophis trajectory today no matter how accurate or how well examined are bound to errors much larger than the span between earth and geosyncronus sattelites. Correct me if i am wrong but this is just the way i see things. We are good but nowhere near being as certain or accurate on such scales. Moreover i guess that we are bound to not having all the required data to make the correct calculation. There are little details that we still miss.

So, based on the above paragraph you may conclude that the expected distance of the Apophis trajectory is way too close for my comfort levels too.
Its a good thing it is still some distance and time away for further study.

Moreover i would expect us to be threatened by many more threats by that time, whether they are interior or exterior to the Earth system.

info on close approach: neo.jpl.nasa.gov...


one object that i find particularly interesting: Comet Encke is SUSPECTED of releasing fragments that caused Tunguska and, much earlier, another crater in Iraq (Umm al Binni).
cometography.com...
www.absoluteastronomy.com...

visualize orbits: janus.astro.umd.edu...

what is fascinating about this comet are some of it`s cultural correlations with the swastika ( en.wikipedia.org... ) -- remember, it`s only a theory. And, on another point, it`ll have an close approach on earth by october 2013 (nothing too close, but the timing is ...nice)

1AU = 92,955,887.6 miles

0.03158 x 92,955,887.6 = 2,935,546.93

So, not so close!