Newly Found Asteroid To Fly Between Earth and Moon On September 18th

The asteroid which is called '2013 RZ53', was discovered on September 13th 2013 by astronomers at the University of Arizona. It will come within 230,000 miles of the Earth on September 18th and is about 10 feet wide.

Here is a short animation showing its orbit -



pretty cool,

Here is the link to space.com

edit to add - im just realizing how small it is, cool that they can spot them that tiny

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

Hardly any warning but, thankfully, hardly a threat. Whew!

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


Is it just me, or are these things (asteroids, comets, fireballs) popping up 'out of nowhere' these days with increasing frequency, with little or no warning. Sheesh! Thanks to the University that spotted this. No thanks to NASA for spending gazzillions sending probes all over the place, yet failing to position just one at a distance, Earth-facing, to keep an eye out for 'In-Coming!!!" Not Helpful!

reply to post by greencmp


I will add if they were sure that it would hit Earth I am very doubtful there would have been any public warning whatsoever.

I wanted to say I read somewhere I think... That the increased asteroid activity had something to do with a disturbance to the Oort Cloud? I could be wrong.. I think it has to do with the Earth Passing through it to some degree or something has knocked some of the things out of whack.

en.m.wikipedia.org...

new_here
reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

 

Is it just me, or are these things (asteroids, comets, fireballs) popping up 'out of nowhere' these days with increasing frequency, with little or no warning. Sheesh! Thanks to the University that spotted this. No thanks to NASA for spending gazzillions sending probes all over the place, yet failing to position just one at a distance, Earth-facing, to keep an eye out for 'In-Coming!!!" Not Helpful!

NASA are busy with their own missions and space programs. The WISE space telescope is looking for Near-Earth objects, but it has its limitations. NASA's budget and techical abilities don't allow it to be the all-seeing eye that spots everything that could ever come close to us; that's a myth. In fact, it's usually the amateur astronomers, with their backyard telescopes (or privately-owned small observatories) that discover asteroids and comets, on a regular basis. The more eyes looking at the sky, the better.

GArnold
reply to post by greencmp

 

I will add if they were sure that it would hit Earth I am very doubtful there would have been any public warning whatsoever.

Why are you doubtful about that? From what I've seen, the astronomy community is very open and vocal. Besides, one observatory's findings have to be confirmed by other observatories and astronomers before they are officially accepted.

Another besides - a 10-foot (3 meter) asteroid would explode in the upper atmosphere with the force of a small atomic bomb, big and bright enough to be spectacular, but with much less force than the Chelyabinsk meteor (which was around 17 meters in diameter).

I wanted to say I read somewhere I think... That the increased asteroid activity had something to do with a disturbance to the Oort Cloud? I could be wrong.. I think it has to do with the Earth Passing through it to some degree or something has knocked some of the things out of whack.

en.m.wikipedia.org...

Nope, nothing like this has been shown by the astronomy community. There was a hypothesis from a couple of astronomers that some comets' trajectories suggest that they were perturbed by a planet in the Oort cloud, but that hypothesis was never accepted due to not enough solid data.

reply to post by new_here


Space is a large place and mankind has basically just learned how to make glasses so that he can see better.

As tech improves, we'll be seeing all sorts of things in space that we had no idea existed. If a ELE was headed for earth in a short time period, I'm not to sure I would want to know.

reply to post by GArnold


Theory is that a red dwarf twin to our sun maybe causing it going through the oort cloud.So far just a theory.
Would be nice if they could confirm that.

dimithae
reply to post by GArnold

 

Theory is that a red dwarf twin to our sun maybe causing it going through the oort cloud.So far just a theory.
Would be nice if they could confirm that.

I think you meant a brown dwarf - a red dwarf is a small star that would be easily visible to the naked eye if it were anywhere near the Solar System - but even a brown dwarf would have shown up in many all-sky surveys that have been completed in infrared. It would also most likely have a noticeable gravitational tug on our planets. A brown dwarf in the outer Solar System is extremely unlikely, but the possibility of a planet out there is good enough to consider.

But as always, everything boils down to what evidence we have.

reply to post by wildespace


Thanks for clarity. I love astronomy but am not an expert I am not sure I would qualify as even a novice astronomer. I took mostly History and Poli Sci classes in College. As I said I thought I read about a possible disturbance but guess it was during the Niribu stuff.

new_here
reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

 

Is it just me, or are these things (asteroids, comets, fireballs) popping up 'out of nowhere' these days with increasing frequency, with little or no warning. Sheesh! Thanks to the University that spotted this. No thanks to NASA for spending gazzillions sending probes all over the place, yet failing to position just one at a distance, Earth-facing, to keep an eye out for 'In-Coming!!!" Not Helpful!

We have more "eyes' looking out for them (better equipment, more NEO projects, etc.) than we've ever had before, so obviously more would be found. That doesn't necessarily mean that there ARE more out there -- just that we are finding more. Twenty years ago, many of these asteroids would have (and in fact DID) come and gone unnoticed, and we Earthlings would have been none the wiser.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


10 feet wide. Not very concerning unless it's headed for my house.

Thanks for sharing OP!

Okay, it's officially weird... never, ever have there been this many so darned close (that we know of recently).

The Tunisia fireball, this, Russia and the several close fly-bys... holy crap, who woulda thunk chicken little was right (well, I would, eventually, but didn't think it would be in my lifetime).

Gonna be a run on hardhats... but really, this IS odd... and a tad worrying, but there is literally nothing I or anyone I know can do about this, so might as well relax and let any further show unfold.

When you see astronomers heading underground, follow them. Hopefully the saucer drivers will lend a hand, or at least take some great pictures.

Edit: Though seriously, yeah, more people, better scopes... probably just that... probably, and these rocks aren't planet killers, but I wonder what's causing the space rain... I wasn't aware of any debris fields we were due to pass through, other than the usual meteor makers. It is noteworthy and worthy of a millimeter eyebrow raise.

Our asteroid-spotting abilities have much improved with the growing number of amateur astronomers, better telescopes, CCDs, and even whole asteroid/comet-spotting networks like ISON

It's much better since the time of dinosaurs, anyway.

reply to post by Baddogma

Many of the fireballs being reported lately have been seen on security cameras and web-cams, which have become more ubiquitous over the past few years. More cameras = more opportunities for sightings.

Obviously the Russian airburst last year was exceptional, and would have been noticed whether or not we had a lot of webcams/security cams, but that may be a relatively isolated event.

KnightFire
reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

 

10 feet wide. Not very concerning unless it's headed for my house.

Thanks for sharing OP!

Allot of folks making lite of it only being ten feet wide, but that is very misleading. It could be spectacular, it really depends on other factors, what it is made of, how compressed it is. Yes it is likely to burn up but there have been others that came thru, it depends on what it's made of. One that was supposed to be around that size ended up hitting a house and then a fat lady, lol, it was the size of a bowling ball, she lived lol.

Think if a bullet like that hit a nuclear reactor, Yea one in a million shot but stranger things have happened lol.

The Bot

Finding things 10 feet wide and reporting on them with 72 hours from close encounter, is really pretty good.

If we're hit, sorry when we're hit by a big one, then maybe we will get a couple of weeks notice if not more?

Cobaltic1978
Finding things 10 feet wide and reporting on them with 72 hours from close encounter, is really pretty good.

If we're hit, sorry when we're hit by a big one, then maybe we will get a couple of weeks notice if not more?

"Look out baby there's a planet comin." Jeff Lynne, 'Do Ya'
Later corrected to "plane-a comin'.." but still LMAO

That is a pretty small incoming speck, but the bigger they are the harder to steer. Or frag.

Would you want more than a couple of hours if there was nothing you could do anyway, and it was the Big One?

On the other hand a disappearing surf scene as a perverted combo of "From Here to Eternity" and Deep Impact" with Ms. Duchovny (I worship her discarded gym socks holy or unholy) would be better than all four years of high school... suits on makeup off.
There's a location vignette that isn't gonna get taped.
Woof."Just hold me Dave... you're even uglier than Max."ROFL

reply to post by wildespace


I guess I'm just surprised there are so darn many Near Earth Objects careening around us. Those finds, being made disconcertingly late before they whiz by lately (with the latest one spotted on the 13th and it due to pass on the 18th) along with the frequency of larger bolides actually hitting atmosphere, just gives the impression of Earth being in a batting cage with the balls coming fast and furious.

Security cameras, more pros, hobbyists and general awareness of meteors and asteroids (especially after the near miss and Russian graze on the same day) sure seems a reasonable answer to the perceived (and tallied) increase... but having so many little asteroids, especially, pass between us and the moon is something.

How many have been found this year, so far? I remember five, off hand, and suspect a few more where this was a once-per-decade occurrence back in the day of dial-up and $1.77 per gallon gas.

I know the universe is a chaotic, violent place with whizzing rocks, exploding stars, sucking singularities and for all we know solar system sized planet eating monsters... but the hypothesis that it's always been like this and we just didn't know until recently isn't really a comforting thought.

We need a more comprehensive NEO watch system and just as importantly, some method of deflection. Better safe, etc.

Wee bitty 10 feet wide rocks are pretty hard to see at 1 AU or more. Thus the short notice.

It's not harmful, not even close to Earth. Besides, something that small would be a drop of water in a hot frying pan. Remember, we have ionizing plasma protecting our little green and blue planet.

reply to post by Baddogma


The Earth get's hit with something like 13,000 objects each day. Small meteors to things the size of dust particles.

We're a giant ball that is over 7,000 miles wide, swinging around our sun at over 67,000 Mph.
Add to that all the various objects in our solar system that are whizing around at orbital speeds, some in nice orbits, some in really eccentric orbits, and it would look like one of those traffic circles we see in downtown London, Paris or Rome with cars zooming by, and some how not quite hitting each other.




A single probe scanning the sky run by NASA isn't going to cut it. The sky is BIG.

REALLY BIG.

Finding every small rock that dares to come close to us is a daunting task. Especially when you're asking for them to find one that's only 10 feet wide, at 10 million miles out. Do you know how small that is up in the sky?
I'll give you a hint: our moon is 1,738 km wide, and 384,399 km away. When it's full and you look up at it, it's only covering 1/2 of a degree of the sky.

Now change that to a rock only 1 km wide and 10 million km away. It's so small that you can't even say 1 arcsecond that it would cover.

So NASA would need a large amount of probes looking everywhere at once.......worse, they would need the people to watch all that data to see if anything is found.....and then track it to see what it's orbit is.

Do you have any idea what that would cost? A LOT more than the US government doles out to NASA right now. And while I don't think we should put a price tag on wanting to protect our planet somehow, I have serious doubts that our government that spends almost a trillion dollars on it's military, but less than 20 billion on NASA will listen.

So enter the amateur astronomer, private observatories, universities and colleges. More and more people are taking up buying telescopes and watching the skies, so that's a good thing.