The Toutatis asteroid hoax - HOW and WHY

Astronomers know nothing about the universe, except for a few large bodies with regular orbits. Any idiot should have understood the latest April 14, 2004, as comet Bradfield (diameter : 10,000 km) popped out of nowhere to become the largest body ever recorded in the inner solar system.

Transcript from edition.cnn.com...

HOW - 1. "actually you will not be able to see it ... "

Spotting Toutatis
Toutatis will not be visible to the unaided eye. Experienced telescope users can see it now from the Southern Hemisphere, and in early October it will be visible from the north.

Finding Toutatis will be challenging, Harris said, due to a combination of the asteroid's position in the sky and interfering moonlight.

Because the asteroid is so close, its location in the sky will vary significantly for skywatchers in different places on Earth at any given moment. And because it moves quickly, the location changes constantly. Printed sky maps don't always provide enough detail to be useful.

"In a large telescope the motion would be perceptible against any stars in the field more or less in real time, sort of like watching the second hand on a clock," Harris said, adding that the movement would be "not quite that fast, but noticeable."

Highly experienced observers will use complex plotting information known as ephemeris data. Others can use software programs that generate maps for specific times and locations.

At its closest on September 29, Toutatis will be visible only to observers in the Southern Hemisphere.

Large and steady binoculars will be able to pick out the pinprick of sunlight reflecting off the asteroid, providing observers "use a good program like Starry Night Pro to plot its incredibly rapid motion across the sky," said Clay Sherrod of the Arkansas Sky Observatory. (The software company Starry Night is owned by Imaginova, parent also of SPACE.com.)

Soon thereafter, experienced backyard astronomers north of the equator will have a chance to find Toutatis.

"By early October, it will suddenly be re-emerging into northern skies as its apparent trajectory will bring it back into very favorable view," Sherrod said in an e-mail interview. But by then the asteroid will be moving away from Earth and getting dimmer. It will quickly become "very difficult" to spot even with an 8-inch telescope, he said.

HOW - 2. "... but we already saw it "

Sherrod photographed the giant space rock last week (it was visible then in the north through large telescopes) and said exposures longer than eight seconds showed a trail as the giant rock moved slightly against the background of stars.

"It has been quite a wonderful show so far," he said.

HOW / WHY - "we know all about what's going on around us - even the weirdest, smallest body"

Asteroid Toutatis was discovered in 1989. Scientists have modeled its strange rotation and odd shape -- it looks something like a pockmarked dumbbell -- on previous flybys.

Instead of a fixed north pole, Toutatis' axis of rotation wanders in two separate cycles of 5.4 and 7.3 Earth-days. So while most asteroids rotate somewhat like a football thrown in a perfect spiral, "Toutatis tumbles like a flubbed pass," says Scott Hudson of Washington State University.

Astronomers will use this week's flyby to examine Toutatis in greater detail, with a goal of pinning down the rock's rate of spin and better estimating its future path.


WHY - "relax, nothing is going to happen here, at least in your life time"

While some rumors have suggested the asteroid's forecasted course might be off by enough to cause a collision with Earth, Sherrod agrees with Harris and other scientists that there is no chance for calamity. Sherrod has been monitoring Toutatis' movement since July 3, logging more than 500 observations that allow mapping of a precise trajectory.

"Although the actual path of it has indeed varied a slight bit from the original calculated, there is absolutely no chance of a physical encounter or impact with Earth," he said.

I saw it last night with my binoculars in the northern sky. I was around 8-930ish pm, at first I thought it was a plane because of the green blue and red colors but it wasn't moving, when I got my binos I looked and saw this ball like object always changing colors, the more I focused the more I could see a greenish trails behind it. It was very pretty and it distanced itself into a little star after awhile.

If it wasn't that then I don't know what it could of been. I know it wasn't a plane thats for damn sure. Beautiful sight nonetheless.

Wasn't a hoax. More of a panicked misconception really.

The people touting it to hit were unaware of the time when it'd hit its perigee. Now thats pretty unprofessional of them.

As far I know it was documented that it would be 21.5 million km's away or miles... It won't be around for another 500 years so you don't have to worry about this asteroid wiping your ass off the face of the earth. Just watch out for the coming ones.

Originally posted by TrueLies
I saw it last night with my binoculars in the northern sky. I was around 8-930ish pm,

Which coordinates ?

i for one am pleased to report that i forgot about it....back during the aussie bloke lunacy i remember telling myself, "uh-oh, that TOUTATIS is the one we've got to worry about" but i got distracted by mundane personal matters & it slipped my mind. i hope no one worried too much about it.

i think the only thing i have to worry about is eating too much kidney beans and sauce

Originally posted by MattMarriott
Astronomers know nothing about the universe, except for a few large bodies with regular orbits. Any idiot should have understood the latest April 14, 2004, as comet Bradfield (diameter : 10,000 km) popped out of nowhere to become the largest body ever recorded in the inner solar system.

I'd dispute that. Bradfield wasn't (as you're claiming) the "largest body ever recofded in the inner solar system.) The 10,000 km is the size of the corona around it. Hale-Bopp was the largest recently discovered comet, and it was found when it was just outside the orbit of Saturn. The core of Bradfield was much smaller than Hale-Bopp.

Hyatuke had a longer tail:
visitor.broaddaylight.com...

What you're seeing is a product of better telescopes and better tools. The stupidity isn't on the side of the astronomers.

Spotting Toutatis
Toutatis will not be visible to the unaided eye. Experienced telescope users can see it now from the Southern Hemisphere, and in early October it will be visible from the north.

I don't see your problem with this. What the astronomers said is correct: "Without a telescope or binoculars you won't be able to see it."

And you can't.

With a nice telescope or great binoculars, you can get some nice pictures... as the article said.

After one pass, they do know the general orbit. There's a small degree of error because of the irregular shape. Better observations will allow them to tweak the math.

And I should point out that it's the 30th. Toutatis did not hit us (in spite of many non-astronomers shrieking that it would and that NASA was covering things up.) It's not going to hit us, and it won't hit us on its return.

...and your problem with these CORRECT predicitons is...?

I don't know the co ordinates.

Pretend North was 12 o'clock East was 3 o'clock...

I was somewhere between 12 and 1 o'clock.

Originally posted by Byrd
[With a nice telescope or great binoculars, you can get some nice pictures... as the article said.

...and your problem with these CORRECT predicitons is...?

I guess adding the true headings over the official lies wasn't clear enough. THERE WAS NO ASTEROID APPOACHING THE EARTH YESTERDAY.

Find out the location of the science pantheon, La Silla - illegible 450 kb map that takes minutes to load. From the one and only ESO - the only lucky people that were able to spot the closest approach in more than 1200 years ... even if it was mag 10 ...
www.ls.eso.org...