Newly discovered large asteroid to pass by Earth Thursday

I just read about this. What really cought my attention that this large asteroid which is about 1,650 feet wide was just discovered on June 10-11th and is on route to flyby Earth on June 14th. I don't know about everyone else , but I'm sitting here and thinking how could we possibly have almost missed this? What if it had actually been heading towards us?

2012 LZ1 just popped onto astronomers' radar this week. It was discovered on the night of June 10-11 by Rob McNaught and his colleagues, who were peering through the Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.

The near-Earth asteroid 2012 LZ1, which astronomers think is about 1,650 feet wide, will come within 14 lunar distances of Earth Thursday evening. While there's no danger of an impact on this pass, the huge space rock may come close enough to be caught on camera.

That's what the team running the Slooh Space Camera thinks, anyway. The online skywatching service will train a telescope on the Canary Islands on 2012 LZ1 and stream the footage live, beginning at 8:00 p.m. EDT Thursday (0000 GMT Friday).

You can watch it live here;

Live Streaming Link

I'm just thankful that the moon happens to be 14x closer to the Earth then this asteroid.

Researchers estimate that the space rock is between 1,000 and 2,300 feet wide. On Thursday evening, it will come within about 3.35 million miles of our planet, or roughly 14 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

Let's just hope we don't actually miss one that's heading towards us directly like we nearly missed this huge asteriod.

S ource

Regards,

reply to post by TheProphetMark


14 Lunar Distances is pretty far off. There is absolutely no threat to Earth.



2012 LU
Jun 23
5.8 LD
45 m

2012 LT
Jun 11
5.2 LD
29 m

2012 LJ
Jun 10
1.6 LD
33 m

Well, I just hope it hits.

We're due for some action.

Not, boring action rain either.

Let's just hope we don't actually miss one

reply to post by TheProphetMark


Time for a cleansing of this cancerous planet...I would rather it be natural than from an inside job

Originally posted by Manhater
Well, I just hope it hits.

We're due for some action.

Not, boring action rain either.

edit on 14-6-2012 by Manhater because: (no reason given)

You do love drama don't ya?

reply to post by TheProphetMark

but I'm sitting here and thinking how could we possibly have almost missed this? What if it had actually been heading towards us?

I'm just thankful that the moon happens to be 14x closer to the Earth then this asteroid.

Answered your own question.

Well I do not worry unless it less then 1 LD
This one is 14 LD
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To answer your question of how we could miss it. Asteroids get knocked all around and out of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter all the time. It is probably a newly ejected rock and if it came from behind the sun with our orbits just right they don't get discovered until they are close. 500 meters is pretty big though. If one that size were to impact it would definitely cause some damage to a significant region depending on where it hit. Good thing this one is a ways off.