Astronomers are watching the asteroid 2005 YU55 spin as it zooms harmlessly past Earth, and everybody else is looking over their shoulders. You can expect too see a huge pile of pictures once the coal-dark space rock has passed by, but NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has provided a foretaste in the form of a six-frame "movie" based on radar data acquired by the Goldstone radio telescope on Monday.
This sequence was captured from a distance of 860,000 miles (1.38 million kilometers). The closest approach comes at 6:28 p.m. ET today, when the quarter-mile-wide (400-meter-wide) asteroid slips just barely within the orbit of the moon. Neither the moon nor Earth is at risk during this flyby, but the information gathered this time around could help astronomers know what they're dealing with during potentially riskier encounters.
http://www.youtube.com/v/cIwX0Qeid9o
There is so much panic going around the web today. The conspiracy buffs have the flyby and tomorrow's EAS test entangled. Many people actually think the 2005 YU55 is an alien vehicle!
And they also believe that our country will be taken over tomorrow: we'll lose radio, TV, and the internet.
Somehow this is one grand drama and "the sky is falling". The new age blogosphere is crazy.
Quote from: PPI Debra on November 08, 2011, 09:29:58 PM
There is so much panic going around the web today. The conspiracy buffs have the flyby and tomorrow's EAS test entangled. Many people actually think the 2005 YU55 is an alien vehicle!
And they also believe that our country will be taken over tomorrow: we'll lose radio, TV, and the internet.
Somehow this is one grand drama and "the sky is falling". The new age blogosphere is crazy.
And yet, here we are, twelve hours after its closest approach . . . still talking about it in an electronic medium. Yeah, I remember claims like this before. (I'm sure you all do as well.) When I was in grade school, I remember, I saw people on the roof of their house waiting for Comet Kohoutek to swing by and pick them up. The story never seems to change. :D
This is a very interesting topic... Astronomers keep a very close look on rocks such as this one because our solar is crawling with them. Although people seem to panic quite a bit about this, there is plenty of scientific evidence to keep astronomers a bit concerned.
In the early history of our planet, earth has repeatedly been bombarded by asteroids. As a matter of fact there is a very interesting theory that states that our moon, because of its composition (it has an iron core as well), may have been part of Earth and ejected into space after a massive collision with a large body.
Nowadays, in the geological scale of time, we do not have as many collisions because of the gas giants (Jupiter, etc.) They protect our planet through their enormous size and gravitational pull ?sucking? in most large debris that get in their path. However, despite all this, geological data suggests that as an average every 500,000 years our planet gets hit by a big one; which suggests that theoretically we are perhaps due for another. That is why NASA has a program called NEO (Near Earth Object) that does nothing but catalog these things?
Quote from: Adriano on November 09, 2011, 10:46:43 AM
This is a very interesting topic... Astronomers keep a very close look on rocks such as this one because our solar is crawling with them. Although people seem to panic quite a bit about this, there is plenty of scientific evidence to keep astronomers a bit concerned.
In the early history of our planet, earth has repeatedly been bombarded by asteroids. As a matter of fact there is a very interesting theory that states that our moon, because of its composition (it has an iron core as well), may have been part of Earth and ejected into space after a massive collision with a large body.
Nowadays, in the geological scale of time, we do not have as many collisions because of the gas giants (Jupiter, etc.) They protect our planet through their enormous size and gravitational pull ?sucking? in most large debris that get in their path. However, despite all this, geological data suggests that as an average every 500,000 years our planet gets hit by a big one; which suggests that theoretically we are perhaps due for another. That is why NASA has a program called NEO (Near Earth Object) that does nothing but catalog these things?
Thanks, Adriano. The coolest thing, for me, about the N.E.O. program is how many amateur astronomers it employs to monitor the skies. It reassures me that there could be no veil of government secrecy about what's out there if the general public is involved in from the get-go. (Granted, foreknowledge of an extinction level event wouldn't necessarily save us from it. ;))
All we need is one rock to ruin our day.
Quote from: PPI Tim on November 09, 2011, 12:12:47 PM
All we need is one rock to ruin our day.
Way to break up the party, Timmeh! ;)
Well heck.. the way I see it... if we know ahead of time that the "big one" is coming and there is nothing we can do, at least we'll have time to go on a big vacation.. spend all our saving... pull out the expensive single malt scotch, Cuban cigars, and enjoy it....
Quote from: Adriano on November 09, 2011, 12:23:38 PM
Well heck.. the way I see it... if we know ahead of time that the "big one" is coming and there is nothing we can do, at least we'll have time to go on a big vacation.. spend all our saving... pull out the expensive single malt scotch, Cuban cigars, and enjoy it....
Way to start the party, Adriano! ;D
Here's a JPL video featuring research scientist Lance Benner discussing the asteroid flyby. This same asteroid made a close approach to us in April 2010, so this flyby gave JPL another opportunity to study it. The first video on this thread shows the new imaging capability of the Goldstone radio telescope in Barstow, CA. If you look at that video again you can actually see features on the asteroid. Very cool. :)
http://www.youtube.com/v/ucuegbwT8MU
This is amazing!!
Quote from: Adriano on November 09, 2011, 12:23:38 PM
Well heck.. the way I see it... if we know ahead of time that the "big one" is coming and there is nothing we can do, at least we'll have time to go on a big vacation.. spend all our saving... pull out the expensive single malt scotch, Cuban cigars, and enjoy it....
Agreed. Consider yourself invited to the party. :)
yep... nothing like going away with bang.. no pun intended...lol
Quote from: Adriano on November 10, 2011, 02:05:28 PM
yep... nothing like going away with bang.. no pun intended...lol
LOL! :D :D :D