All Asteroids Discovered From 1980 - 2010 [VIDEO]

Wow, this video somewhat amazed me. We've found so many asteroids near earth, but that's so little of what is really out there.. It's a little hard for me to comprehend just how many there are out there in near space! also how lucky we are to have not been struck majorly in recent times!

view of the solar system showing the locations of all the asteroids starting in 1980, as asteroids are discovered they are added to the map and highlighted white so you can pick out the new ones.
The final colour of an asteroids indicates how closely it comes to the inner solar system.
Earth Crossers are Red
Earth Approachers (Perihelion less than 1.3AU) are Yellow
All Others are Green

Hope you all enjoy the video (as linked below)

Asteroid Discovery From 1980 - 2010 [VIDEO]

I would've embeded the video but I don't know how yet. any way enjoy

EDIT:Best viewed in fullscreen

Orbital elements were taken from the 'astorb.dat' data created by Ted Bowell and associates at www.naic.edu...


[edit on 31-8-2010 by Super Chubby]

[edit on 31-8-2010 by Super Chubby]
Mod Note: External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

[edit on Tue Aug 31 2010 by Jbird]

Great post, thanks! Looks fantastic full-screen.


Makes me wonder if there are really that many out there, or is someone "discovering" the same ones over and over...

reply to post by avocadoshag


It is an amazing video.
haha it would be funny if there was only 40 asteroids around being rediscovered 1000 times over. Boy won't the faces of the astronomers be red

Looks like the biggest discoveries began in 1998; I'm not sure but I think that's about when they got the Hubble telescope working properly. Can anyone confirm or refute that?

reply to post by avocadoshag


"NASA released the first new images from Hubble's fixed optics on January 13, 1994. The pictures were beautiful; their resolution, excellent. Hubble was transformed into the telescope that had been originally promised. "

SOURCE: hubblesite.org...

Originally posted by Super Chubby
reply to post by avocadoshag

 

"NASA released the first new images from Hubble's fixed optics on January 13, 1994. The pictures were beautiful; their resolution, excellent. Hubble was transformed into the telescope that had been originally promised. "

SOURCE: hubblesite.org...

Thanks SC; in that case I wonder what caused the explosion of new discoveries in 98/99?

Could've been a number of things I supose, A break through in "radar" or better euqipment? or a whole lot of asteroids have entered the all ready present rocks do you have any theories?

I was about to theorize that the increase in discoveries might have been the result of either better equipment (or new techniques) or by an increase in interest and, therefore, in the number of people looking for asteroids.

Then I found this Wikipedia article which indicates that it was a combination of both of the above:

There is increasing interest in identifying asteroids whose orbits cross Earth's, and that could, given enough time, collide with Earth

Two events in later decades increased the alarm: the increasing acceptance of Walter Alvarez' hypothesis that an impact event resulted in the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, and the 1994 observation of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter.

All these considerations helped spur the launch of highly efficient automated systems that consist of Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) cameras and computers directly connected to telescopes. Since 1998, a large majority of the asteroids have been discovered by such automated systems.

There have been some amazing discoveries, including this asteroid with its own moon: