Apparently there's this huge ass asteroid that's coming pretty damn close to Earth in about a week. Some people believe because of recent research on a similar event with Mars, this asteroid could really mess up Earth without even hitting it.
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I'm still reading about it but it sounds pretty serious lol. AFAIK, NASA still doesn't know for sure what's gonna happen.
Quote:
Background 2007 TU24 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey (Arizona) on October 11, 2007. This object's 1.4-lunar-distance approach on Jan. 29 is the closest for any known Potentially Hazardous Asteroid until 2027. At this writing, the object's orbit is too uncertain to identify post-2008 close Earth approaches, but radar astrometry probably may allow prediction of any close approaches centuries into the future.
Apart from its absolute visual magnitude (H = 20.1, implying a diameter ~0.3 km if it has a typical S-class albedo), nothing is known about TU24's physical properties, but the expected echo signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) almost certainly will suffice for high-resolution using Arecibo or Goldstone.
Goldstone observations are scheduled on January 23 and Arecibo observations are scheduled on January 27-28 and February 1-4. Note that Goldstone observations straddle the January 23-24 date boundary;
This object will brighten to about 11th magnitude in late January when it will be a target for photometric and spectroscopic observations.
Orbital and Physical Characteristics orbit type Apollo semimajor axis 2.010 AU eccentricity 0.529 inclination 5.8° perihelion distance 0.947 AU aphelion distance 3.073 AU absolute magnitude (H) 20.1 diameter 300 meters +- a factor of two rotation period unknown pole direction unknown lightcurve amplitude unknown spectral class unknown
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Last edited by Reise on Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
Joined: May 2006 Posts: 1200 Location: Once Xian, Now Garrosh (US). TEXAS IRL!
Reise wrote:
Apparently there's this huge ass asteroid that's coming pretty damn close to Earth in about a week. Some people believe because of recent research on a similar event with Mars, this asteroid could really mess up Earth without even hitting it.
Code: Select all
I'm still reading about it but it sounds pretty serious lol. AFAIK, NASA still doesn't know for sure what's gonna happen.
Darn I wish I didn't read this thread. -.- I got too much plans for my life so it'd be very appreciated if that thing takes another route to Far Away From the Earth.
Weird the news doesn't mention it, if an asteroid is going to pay us a visit I'd think the newspapers would be stuffed with info about it so people can run into circles and panic.
Darn I wish I didn't read this thread. -.- I got too much plans for my life so it'd be very appreciated if that thing takes another route to Far Away From the Earth.
Weird the news doesn't mention it, if an asteroid is going to pay us a visit I'd think the newspapers would be stuffed with info about it so people can run into circles and panic.
My thoughts too lol.
I was just thinkin I shouldnt of checked this topic =.=, but I can't stop lookin at stuff about it now ;x.
Joined: May 2006 Posts: 1200 Location: Once Xian, Now Garrosh (US). TEXAS IRL!
Assuming all things are correct... its going to pass 800,000~ miles away... the earths magnetic field is... roughly 10-11x the radius of the earth. which is like what 100k-200k? still HIGHLY unlikely.
Disclaimer: Wikipedia.com lool
93,000,000 miles = 1 AU
Jan 28th distance between earth & asteroid 0.0086 so
93,000,000 * 0.0086 = 799,800 Miles.
Distance of earth's magnetosphere = 43,498 Miles
seems like we're good... never know
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Last edited by Foilin on Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
About the video, at 3:40 where they show how that asteroid passes by, if it's positively charged and of that size, nothing will happen right?
Foilin wrote:
Assuming all things are correct... its going to pass 800,000~ miles away... the earths magnetic field is... roughly 10-11x the radius of the earth. which is like what 100k-200k? still HIGHLY unlikely.
Disclaimer: Wikipedia.com lool
Please explain this as you would explain it to a 3 year old. :3
Assuming all things are correct... its going to pass 800,000~ miles away... the earths magnetic field is... roughly 10-11x the radius of the earth. which is like what 100k-200k? still HIGHLY unlikely.
Disclaimer: Wikipedia.com lool
93,000,000 miles = 1 AU
Jan 28th distance between earth & asteroid 0.0086 so
93,000,000 * 0.0086 = 799,800 Miles.
Distance of earth's magnetosphere = 43,498 Miles
seems like we're good... never know
NASAs new updated tracker shows it as .0038 AU though on the 29th
I wouldn't worry about it hitting the planet, I'm more worried about what the effects of it passing so close could be. Sure it sounds like a long way, but that's nothing on the large scale. Gravity does weird shit, and there's that thing with the comet that went by Mars...
Joined: May 2006 Posts: 1200 Location: Once Xian, Now Garrosh (US). TEXAS IRL!
So. if that's the case it would still be really far. 353,400 miles away.
Meh, we shall see. if it was REALLY a big threat we wouldnt have just now heard of it.
@ reise
353,400 - 43,000 = 310,000 miles away from the outer most point of the magnetosphere. still close on a Galactic scale, but i don't think there is anything for us to fear.
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Last edited by Foilin on Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
I wouldn't worry about it hitting the planet, I'm more worried about what the effects of it passing so close could be. Sure it sounds like a long way, but that's nothing on the large scale. Gravity does weird shit, and there's that thing with the comet that went by Mars...
Yeah not really thinking about it hitting, cause for thats its far off but the passing of it is what interests me.
Meh, we shall see. if it was REALLY a big threat we wouldnt have just now heard of it.
Think about it though. If you heard about this on the morning news, people reporting about this massive asteroid coming close enough to Earth that scientists are still scrambling to figure out its actual path, what would you do? It's likely NASA doesn't want to tell a lot about what they find for fear of causing panic.
Imagine if they discovered there's a chance of it actually impacting Earth, the whole planet would go to hell. People aren't gonna to just go about their daily lives knowing everything could be over soon.
Joined: May 2006 Posts: 1200 Location: Once Xian, Now Garrosh (US). TEXAS IRL!
Reise wrote:
Foilin wrote:
Meh, we shall see. if it was REALLY a big threat we wouldnt have just now heard of it.
Think about it though. If you heard about this on the morning news, people reporting about this massive asteroid coming close enough to Earth that scientists are still scrambling to figure out its actual path, what would you do? It's likely NASA doesn't want to tell a lot about what they find for fear of causing panic.
Imagine if they discovered there's a chance of it actually impacting Earth, the whole planet would go to hell. People aren't gonna to just go about their daily lives knowing everything could be over soon.
But, assuming that's true it wouldn't make a difference. its not like NASA is the only astronomical power in the world either there is Russia and China too. they surely would have said something.
Well that's the thing, observatories around the world are sending data they get about this asteroid to NASA. This page is mostly jibberish to me, but it does mention it: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2007%20TU24;orb=1
Joined: May 2006 Posts: 1200 Location: Once Xian, Now Garrosh (US). TEXAS IRL!
Yea, but i doubt that all of those tens of thousands of people would have kept their mouths shut... there is still a risk but 300,000 miles is a LONNNNNNNNNG WAY! lol
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