[quote]Two small asteroids in unrelated orbits will pass within the moon's distance of the Earth on Wednesday, according to NASA.
It's an unusual event that shows the need for closer monitoring of near space for Earth-threatening encounters, a scientist with the program said.
The objects don't pose a threat to Earth, and they will not be visible to the naked eye, said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near Earth Program, which tracks potentially hazardous asteroids and comets within 28 million miles of Earth.
The objects will visible from Earth as tiny specks of light with the help of moderate-sized amateur telescopes, he said.
Near-Earth asteroid 2010 RX30, which is estimated to be 32 to 65 feet in size, will pass within 154,000 miles of Earth at 5:51 a.m. ET Wednesday. The second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 20 to 46 feet in size, will pass within 49,088 miles of Earth at 5:12 pm ET.
In case you were wondering, that means the two asteroids will pass within 0.6 and 0.2 lunar distances from the Earth, respectively. The first will be closest to Earth over the north Pacific, and the second, over Antarctica.
Roughly 50 million objects pass through near-Earth space each day, Yeomans said. But what makes this situation noteworthy is that these two asteroids are passing so close to Earth on the same day and that NASA spotted them so far in advance.
"Things like this happen every day that we simply don’t know about because we don’t have the telescopes large enough to find them or surveys that are looking full-time," he said. "This demonstrates the system's working on some level, but we need larger telescopes and more of them to find objects that are coming this close."
The Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, discovered both objects Sunday morning during a routine monitoring of the skies, NASA said.
The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, first received the observations Sunday morning, determined preliminary orbits and concluded both objects would pass within the distance of the moon about three days later.
Yeomans described the discovery as a warning shot in a field of study of low-probability events that have global, high-impact consequences. He said that it was only when scientists began looking for near-Earth objects in the 1990s that they realized there was a "problem."
"We have only recently appreciated how many of these objects are in near Earth's space and [it's] best that we keep track of them and find them," he said. "I think this is Mother Nature's way of firing a shot over the bow and warning Earth-based astronomers that we have a lot of work to do."[/quote]
Source: [url]http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/07/two-asteroids-to-pass-close-to-earth-on-wednesday/?hpt=C1[/url]
50 Fuckin Million?!
Pretty fucking awesome if you ask me.
Our atmosphere don't take none of that shit from no space trash!
And this is why we have an atmosphere.
I imagine looking at the moon, then seeing this big black speck fly across the moon. :v:
This rocks!
[QUOTE=TheTalon;24682818]
50 Fuckin Million?![/QUOTE]
And most of it was made by us. :smile:
[QUOTE=FinalHunter;24694030]HIT THE EARTH.
HIT THE EARTH, HIT THE EARTH, HIT THE EARTH, HIT THE EARTH.
DO IT.
It'll be cool.[/QUOTE]
aka shooting star.
The number of asteroids that come close to hitting us, and are not even detected is scary.
[QUOTE=General Omega;24694015]And most of it was made by us. :smile:[/QUOTE]
No it wasn't.
so this happened like half an hour ago right
caring level : over 9000
:frog:
What sized asteroid/meteor should we be worried about, in feet please(I'm American).
SEE IF NASA CANT SEE TWO ASTEROIDS THEN PLANET X MUST BE REAL, WE WILL ALL DIE IN 2012 :downs:
Pretty cool if you ask me.
To the bunkers!
[QUOTE=credesniper;24702049]What sized asteroid/meteor should we be worried about, in feet please(I'm American).[/QUOTE]
Any asteroids that you would even measure in feet wouldn't be of any concern, really. An actual threatening size would be in the kilometers.
[QUOTE=Swilly;24685111]And this is why we have an atmosphere.[/QUOTE]
Breathing is for chumps, kill the space rocks! :hist101:
Send the chimps.
Can we ride on them?
[img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/dewey.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=petieng;24694678]The number of asteroids that come close to hitting us, and are not even detected is scary.
[/QUOTE]
Not really because we only have to worry about big ones.
[QUOTE=credesniper;24702049]What sized asteroid/meteor should we be worried about, in feet please(I'm American).[/QUOTE]
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Meteor_Crater_-_Arizona.jpg[/img]
Created by an object 50ish Yards wide, and its about 1.2Km in diameter
So something the size of half a football field upon impact could wipe out a small city
[QUOTE=TheTalon;24706224][img_thumb]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Meteor_Crater_-_Arizona.jpg[/img_thumb]
Created by an object 50ish Yards wide, and its about 1.2Km in diameter
So something the size of half a football field upon impact could wipe out a small city[/QUOTE]
It'd have to be pretty big before it reached the atmosphere to do much damage.
[QUOTE=DELL;24704374]Not really because we only have to worry about big ones.[/QUOTE]
Anything bigger than 150ft or so across is going to do nuke scale damage. The chances of us spotting an asteroid of that size is very small.
[QUOTE=HiddenMyst;24708553]It'd have to be pretty big before it reached the atmosphere to do much damage.[/QUOTE]
They don't even need to reach the ground to flatten a city. Like I said, one around 150ft across would most likely explode in the lower atmosphere, similar to a nuclear airblast detonation, and flatten everything within miles.
Too bad we probably won't see them.. They always happen to pass when I'm on the other side of the world.
[editline]04:26PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=petieng;24712049]Anything bigger than 150ft or so across is going to do nuke scale damage. The chances of us spotting an asteroid of that size is very small.
They don't even need to reach the ground to flatten a city. Like I said, one around 150ft across would most likely explode in the lower atmosphere, similar to a nuclear airblast detonation, and flatten everything within miles.[/QUOTE]
I really don't know where you're getting that from. I can't imagine how an asteroid 150 feet across would explode instead of vaporize.
Edit: More research shows the size doesn't really matter, it's the composition and speed of the meteorite.
Close one
[QUOTE=JeffAndersen;24717566]Too bad we probably won't see them.. They always happen to pass when I'm on the other side of the world.
[editline]04:26PM[/editline]
I really don't know where you're getting that from. I can't imagine how an asteroid 150 feet across would explode instead of vaporize.
Edit: More research shows the size doesn't really matter, it's the composition and speed of the meteorite.[/QUOTE]
It does depend on composition and some compositions will explode, because of the pressure and heat. It's already happened [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event[/url]
[quote]The explosion is believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3.1–6.2 mi) above the Earth's surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object's size, with general agreement that it was [B]a few tens of metres across[/B].[4][/quote]
[url]http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/Airburst.html[/url]
South Africa. Wouldn't have been able to see a damn thing.
Any images of these asteroids as they made the pass?
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