An 1.3 kilometer (0.8 mi) Asteroid with its own Moon will zip past Earth tonight
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https://www.livescience.com/65567-asteroid-passes-close-to-earth.html
A very big asteroid with its own little moon is going to zip past Earth tonight (May 25) — close enough that, with some preparation and a decent telescope, amateur astronomers may spot it blotting out the stars.
This moon-and-asteroid system, called 1999 KW4, is made up of two rocks. The big one is about 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometers) wide, according to NASA, and shaped like a spinning top. The smaller one is more elongated and stretches 0.35 miles (0.57 km) along its longest dimension. It points lengthwise toward its much larger twin.
Together, the asteroid and its minimoon will pass Earth at such a strange, steep angle that NASA called them "the least accessible … for a spacecraft mission of any known binary near-Earth asteroid."
The two asteroids will pass closest to Earth at 7:05 pm EDT (1105 GMT), when they'll be just 3,219,955 miles (5,182,015 km) from the planet's surface. That's more than a dozen times the distance between the Earth and the moon in its orbit around our planet, and much too far for the space rocks to pose any threat. In fact, this is the fourth approach the binary asteroids have made toward Earth since they were discovered in 1999, and not the closest. This is not the first time, according to EarthSky, that astronomers plan to make radar images of these asteroids as they pass.
Back on May 25, 2001, according to NASA, the asteroids passed about 6.7% closer to Earth than they will this time, at a distance of 3,005,447 miles (4,836,798 km). Seventeen years from now, on May 25, 2036, the rocks will pass 55.2% closer to Earth, at a distance of just 1,443,511 miles (2,323,106 km) — again, posing no threat worth worrying about.
These big rocks have been frequent flyers in our planet's neighborhood for a long time.
Hit us you coward.
SLOW DOWN YOU SPEED DEMON
Close but no cigar
Elon Musk's Starlink is actually a distributed laser grid defense system, launched just in time for this asteroid.
It's kind of amazing that you don't need to be hude to have your own moon. .8 miles long is good enough I guess. Wonder if we could have mini mini colonies.
Can we not please? I swear 9 times out of ten we get asteroid articles we get "PWEASE HIT US END OUR SUFFERING MISTA COMET UWU"
I wonder if I could acquire my own tennis ball sized moon if I ate enough spaghetti and meatballs.
I'm just amazed that something so small has enough gravitational force to have ANYTHING orbit it. That's pretty amazing, imo
Yeah
Haven't you seen really fat couples with a horde of offspring orbiting them?
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