Asteroid collision with earth -2015

The object 2010 KH has been observed only by WISE and currently has a
disgusting orbit: semimajor axis = 3.2 +- 3 AU. In fact, it might not
even be a NEO. However, by using the available data, we have found Virtual
impactors, including one in 2015, of course with a very low impact
probability (the asteroid could be almost anywhere, thus we cannot exclude
that it could be on top of us at some time in the near future).

Now this situation is very unpleasant. This object possibly does not even
exist as a NEO, on the other hand the nominal solution is a NEO with
absolute magnitude 18.2. Our way to handle this would be to proclaim
that it has not been discovered, and refuse to give credit to WISE and to
NASA for such a terrible job. However, as you well know, this kind of
decision is not in our hands.

Our job is to report objects which might be impacting the Earth. It is not
part of our style to adopt scare tactics to push astronomers to observe
asteroids with Virtual Impactors; however, with very simple arithmetics,
it can be deduced from our risk page that in case this asteroid was to
impact the Earth in 2015, the impact energy is estimated at 8,000
megatons. Thus we are assuming that, whenever an asteroid has a Virtual
Impactor, the astronomers, be they professionals or amateurs, are
available to make an effort to follow up. It should be especially the
responsibility of the person/organization who is credited with the
discovery, because if in fact an asteroid is lost while still having VIs,
the risk for our planet has not in fact been decreased. In this case, the
responsibility should belong mostly to the WISE team, and ultimately to
NASA.

We are aware that the observation of this object is not easy, now there is
full moon and the uncertainty is growing rapidly; the magnitude, although
not low, is feasible for several observatories. However, we ask that an
effort is done to recover this object.

Yours

Andrea Milani

source



================================================
Andrea Milani Comparetti
Dipartimento di Matematica
Piazzale B. Pontecorvo 5
56127 PISA ITALY

Before y'all freak out you should take a look at the Earth Impact Risk Summary from NASA.

Impact Probability for this object is 1.4e-08. That equals - 0.000001400% chance of Earth impact .

or 1 in 71,429,000 chance of hitting us

or 99.99999860% chance the asteroid will miss the Earth.


neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

Looks like we will be OK after all.

Maybe I'm a bit confused......is your source yourself or did you find this info elsewhere???

I posted the source...not me...I copied directly from the source...I should have added quotes...sorry

I thought it was an interesting post about an observation of potential sky-fall and it make you wonder just how much is out there that we do not see.

The concern apparently is that not much is yet known about it's orbit but it does have potential and need s to be followed.

Following the source someone replies and it does not seem that bad. However, I dont understand all the lingo used but this guy doesnt seem too bothered. Looks like they all agree it needs traking though.

#23832 From: Dave Tholen Date: Mon Jun 28, 2010 11:40 am Subject: Re: [MPML] 2010 KH tholen@... Send Email Send Email > The object 2010 KH has been observed only by WISE and currently has a > disgusting orbit: semimajor axis = 3.2 +- 3 AU. I don't think that a plus-or-minus value is a very good way to describe a quantity that has a decidedly non-Gaussian distribution. One might be led to believe that the semimajor axis could be as small as 0.2 AU at the one-sigma level, when the semimajor axis is probably no smaller than 0.85 AU. At the other end, one might be led to believe that the semimajor axis has a 12.2 AU upper limit at the three-sigma level, when it is probably unconstrained at the high end; I found a solution that satisfies the observations with a semimajor axis of 953 AU. In fact, we have a double-solution in this case. It's either an Aten with perihelion distance between 0.57 and 0.60 AU and an aphelion distance between 1.10 and 1.23 AU, or it's an Apollo/Amor/Mars crosser with a perihelion distance between 0.94 and 1.45 AU and an aphelion distance greater than 1.84 AU. > In fact, it might not even be a NEO. Indeed; there are lots of Mars crosser solutions, but they all have aphelion distances beyond Jupiter. Possible, but less common. > However, by using the available data, we have found Virtual > impactors, including one in 2015, of course with a very low impact > probability (the asteroid could be almost anywhere, thus we cannot exclude > that it could be on top of us at some time in the near future). > > Now this situation is very unpleasant. This object possibly does not even > exist as a NEO, on the other hand the nominal solution is a NEO with > absolute magnitude 18.2. My best-fitting orbit has it as Mars crosser, though I rejected three observations (or rather my automatic outlier rejection software rejected them). My overall best-fitting orbit has an absolute magnitude of 18.0, but the best-fitting orbit with an Earth-crossing solution has an absolute magnitude of 20.4. > Our way to handle this would be to proclaim > that it has not been discovered, and refuse to give credit to WISE and to > NASA for such a terrible job. However, as you well know, this kind of > decision is not in our hands. Let's not mix the politics of discovery credit with the issue at hand. It's a can of worms to draw a dividing line between "terrible job" and "good job", if that's the criterion you're advocating for assigning discovery credit. We recently looked at the NEO discoveries in 2008 and 2009 and found that about 60 percent of them will have ephemeris uncertainties in excess of 3 degrees at their next apparition, with only about 2 percent of them getting bright enough to be recovered by the existing surveys. That means to find the others, some larger aperture telescope is going to have to do a LOT of hunting with smaller fields of view. One could easily conclude that the 60 percent constitutes a "terrible job" and therefore "haven't been discovered". See why it's a can of worms? > Our job is to report objects which might be impacting the Earth. But if you look at short-arc orbit solutions for newly-discovered objects with ordinary motion that are almost certainly main-belt asteroids, you'll probably find a lot of Earth-crossing solutions, with some smaller fraction being virtual impactors. As a general rule, you don't look at those, however. Are you looking at this one only because it was MPECed with an Amor-class orbit? > It is not > part of our style to adopt scare tactics to push astronomers to observe > asteroids with Virtual Impactors; however, with very simple arithmetics, > it can be deduced from our risk page that in case this asteroid was to > impact the Earth in 2015, the impact energy is estimated at 8,000 > megatons. Thus we are assuming that, whenever an asteroid has a Virtual > Impactor, the astronomers, be they professionals or amateurs, are > available to make an effort to follow up. It should be especially the > responsibility of the person/organization who is credited with the > discovery, because if in fact an asteroid is lost while still having VIs, > the risk for our planet has not in fact been decreased. In this case, the > responsibility should belong mostly to the WISE team, and ultimately to > NASA. As you know, WISE does not do targeted observations. Are you advocating that they don't bother looking for NEOs in the WISE data because they are unable to do the necessary follow-up? What about the NEOs that fade below the ability of the groundbased discoverers to follow-up? Are you arguing that they failed in their responsibility? > We are aware that the observation of this object is not easy, now there is > full moon and the uncertainty is growing rapidly; the magnitude, although > not low, is feasible for several observatories. However, we ask that an > effort is done to recover this object. I have the ephemeris uncertainty as 5.3 by 1.3 degrees right now (one-sigma), with an apparent magnitude of 21.4, subject to the usual uncertainty of converting a thermal flux into a visual magnitude. NeoDys shows a rhombus- shaped uncertainty region only about 3 degrees wide (three-sigma). The difference is partly because it's a double-solution. The Aten solutions produce ephemeris positions that are east and spatially separated from those for the Apollo/Amor/Mars crossing solutions. The NeoDys prediction is pretty much centered on the Mars crossing solutions, but encompasses the Apollo and Amor solutions at the eastern end of the clump, but excludes the Aten clump much farther toward the east. Right now it would take us three Megaprime fields to recover the object, one centered on the Aten clump and two adjacent ones on the Apollo/Amor/Mars crosser clump. However, Megaprime doesn't go back on the telescope until July 6, by which time the problem will be twice as bad. Fortunately, it should be getting brighter, possibly bright enough for the groundbased surveys to recover later in the year, by which time it would be hopeless with a smaller-field telescope. However, for now, attempts at recovery sh

source

Sorry that was a terrible cut and pate job. The source is easier to follow.

[edit on 4/7/2010 by LestatG]

er, the title of this post is somewhat misleading

on the other hand, i'm glad the world is finally waking up to the very genuine threat of this type of impact

on a side note, did anybody catch Prof. Bill Napier's paper on the evidence for a multiple impact event around 10000 years ago in the Royal Astronomical Society's monthly press release? (few months back now)

if you haven't, check it out

Ps. Just watched the ISS rip past at mag. -2.3 - cool as

[edit on 4-7-2010 by sputnik]

According to this orbit diagram, 2010 KH won't even be close in 2015.


ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by sputnik

Ps. Just watched the ISS rip past at mag. -2.3 - cool as

Damn, I must have missed it, usually I see it every night around 11:20pm (it varies throughout the year). Its really bright and great to watch. For a split second you can almost imagine it being an alien spacecraft

reply to post by the_denv


was just thinking the same today - it's so bright at the moment that you think it must be closer but there's no sound - i wonder how many people think they've seen a UFO (if only)

"Alert! Asteroid HD 1 to pass Earth dangerously close w highly uncertain .2 LD orbit"

a reply to: UnBreakable
www.spaceweather.com...

2015 HD1 Apr 21 0.2 LD 15 m

It is only 15m.

Chances are if it hits the atmosphere it will explode like the one did in Russia.

.2 LD is certainly close though.

Almost like a bullet grazing your hairline.

Thanks for the heads up!

*ducks*

Add from edit:

I had to go look up how big the meteor was that stuck Arizona and left the meteor crater there about 50,000 years ago, and according to what I read that was a 50 m asteroid... and this is a 15m asteroid, so I think we will all be ok...
Just had to double check that...lol

even at .2 LD, it's still over 68,000 miles out. close in space distance, but it shouldn't even come close to the outer layer of our atmosphere

originally posted by: jimmyx
even at .2 LD, it's still over 68,000 miles out. close in space distance, but it shouldn't even come close to the outer layer of our atmosphere

Come on, Jimmy - stop ruining the doom porn with all your scientific facts and rational thinking! We need to panic and run around screaming and looting!

and the point to tracking these objects is ????
what can humans do about it ???
delicate wobbly two legged life forms that they are.
if it hits, when it hits.. will all of history be lost in one single thud....
does it matter ???
if it ends all life on planet earth who will be left to care?
more to the point where do we all go to enter the next level?
and what waits for us there??
no one should take this existing planet too serious, its not eternal? it will end one day sometime but few of us currently on it will be still in a biological state to witness it.
cheer up, tomorrow is another day, or is it?
meanwhile I'll have another bag of aliens with astroids on the side.. yum yum..

originally posted by: Darkblade71
a reply to: UnBreakable
www.spaceweather.com...

2015 HD1 Apr 21 0.2 LD 15 m

It is only 15m.

Chances are if it hits the atmosphere it will explode like the one did in Russia.

.2 LD is certainly close though.

Almost like a bullet grazing your hairline.

Thanks for the heads up!

*ducks*

Add from edit:

I had to go look up how big the meteor was that stuck Arizona and left the meteor crater there about 50,000 years ago, and according to what I read that was a 50 m asteroid... and this is a 15m asteroid, so I think we will all be ok...
Just had to double check that...lol

I saw the vid and searched before posting it and found this thread. Not that anything's going to happen, I just thought it was funny that a thread from July 2010 talks about an asteroid strike in 2015.

a reply to: UnBreakable

I thought that was interesting too.

I noticed the original date right away when I started reading the thread,
so good job pulling it back up a day before!





A thread that can be finalized after tomorrow.

originally posted by: flipflop
and the point to tracking these objects is ????
what can humans do about it ???

Asteroid Impact, funnily enough is the one natural disaster humans actually can prevent. It's one handy reason to have a space program. If you didn't know this then you should do some reading here: Saving Earth One Asteroid at a Time

originally posted by: tallcool1

originally posted by: jimmyx
even at .2 LD, it's still over 68,000 miles out. close in space distance, but it shouldn't even come close to the outer layer of our atmosphere

Come on, Jimmy - stop ruining the doom porn with all your scientific facts and rational thinking! We need to panic and run around screaming and looting!

yeah really...lol....however, that one that blew up big time over Russia, nobody knew about....those are the ones that make some anxious...well...make ME anxious, anyway.

originally posted by: JadeStar

originally posted by: flipflop
and the point to tracking these objects is ????
what can humans do about it ???

Asteroid Impact, funnily enough is the one natural disaster humans actually can prevent. It's one handy reason to have a space program. If you didn't know this then you should do some reading here: Saving Earth One Asteroid at a Time

I thought I read somewhere that not all parts of space that surround earth, are being monitored....there are only so many people, telescopes and/or monitoring stations. maybe that has changed recently, but, I'm not aware of it.