Duck and Cover! Here Comes Another One!

Omigosh!  It's coming right for us! OK, maybe not.

NASA says it won't hit us. But what if it does? WHAT IF IT DOES!?!?!?

Of course I'm warning you today about Sunday's imminent arrival of asteroid 2014 RC, which will zoom by the planet at about a distance of 22,000 miles. That's close, man! It's so close that it will pass near the orbital zone of our weather satellites and those way-out there communications satellites. 

NASA asteroid plot projection. See http://www.spaceweather.com/

At the time of close approach, the rock will hurtle over New Zealand at 18:18 UTC (universal time). I'll let you do the conversion math to your own time. I'm at Salt Lake City Comic Con, so I have a waiver from having to do any math in my head today. The rock is about 60 feet long, and was only discovered on August 31 by astronomers in Hawaii. So if you feel a big thump on Sunday, maybe the NASA guys were wrong and New Zealand just got smacked. That would be bad, because they make great movies down there.

This will be Close!

Looking over the shoulder of asteroid 2012 DA14. In the center of the view is our home. This would be the view from the asteroid today, February 14. It will be a much closer view tomorrow!

Asteroid 2012 DA14 is in the news this week, because of its extremely close approach to the Earth. At its closest approach, it will be just about 17,000 miles above the country of Indonesia at 12:25 pm MST. So while you're having your lunch break tomorrow, spare a few minutes to think about how blessed we are that this is just a near-miss. Perhaps ponder on the prehistoric hits that cause the extinctions of dinosaurs or other species. And consider that it is still entirely possible that yet some future asteroid, unknown to us at present could smack us a good one with dire consequences.

But not this one! DA14 is going to pass so close that it will fly inside the ring of geosynchronous satellites, prompting some alarmists to fear disruption to our communications satellites. However, the Space Data Association and NASA have calculated the trajectory of the rock and determined that it will not come any closer than 1,000 km to any space satellite. You can read more of their calculations here: http://spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=40087

Calculated path of the asteroid. Times are Greenwhich Mean Time. Looking down over the North Pole. Notice the effect of gravity upon the asteroid's path. 

DA14 is approaching Earth from the Southern Hemisphere, so observers in the northern countries won't be able to observe it until it is right on us and passing by. You can learn more about DA14, and see more trajectory calculations and videos at NASA's website: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html

Missed Me! Missed Me!

Asteroid Toutatis radar images.

This last week saw a flurry of asteroid watch action as several rocky bodies passed close to the Earth. Well, relatively speaking.  On December 11, not one but THREE asteroids made scientists take notice. 

Zip! There it goes! 2012 XE54 is spotted.

First on the list was 2012 XE54, a small bodied rock about 36 meters in size, passed within the Earth-Moon distance, a little over 60% of the distance. Not Earth-shattering, but big enough to possibly cause a Tunguska-like event if it had hit us. Scary note here: this was a recently-discovered asteroid, which shows you that there are dangerous steroids out there that we DON'T know about yet.

Next up was 2012 XL55, about half the size of XE54, but it wasn't as close... just a mere 4.2 times the distance from Earth to Moon (which itself is 240,000+ miles away). And on it's heels was 2009 BS5, just a little bit smaller, but twice as far away.

Then came the big show on the 12th. Asteroid 4179 Toutatis is an old friend, first discovered in 1934. It has a somewhat erratic orbit that actually crosses the orbit of Mars as well as Earth's, and is influenced by the gravity of Jupiter. It comes closer to earth about every four years. Radar images show it to be like a peanut shell in shape, with two lobes. It's greatest length is about 4.2 kilometers, making rather large actually.  On December 13th, a Chinese space probe made a close pass to Toutatis. You can find all about that encounter here on SpaceRef: http://spaceref.com/asteroids/chinas-change-2-does-close-flyby-of-asteroid-toutatis.html

Toutatis came by at about 18 Lunar Distances. It is expected to make a really close pass in 2069!

Here comes another one!

It's Duck and Cover time!

While most of us were sleeping, a chunk of rock about 20 meters across zipped by Earth on its way around the Solar System. The asteroid, designated 2012 TC4 was estimated to pass by our planet rather close, at about 1/4 the distance from the Earth to the Moon, or about 96,000 kilometers (about 59,000 miles).

Time-elapsed picture of 2012 TC4. Picture by Remanzacco Observatory.

For more comet and asteroid updates, check the blog of the Associazionie Friulana di Astronomia e Meteorologia: http://remanzacco.blogspot.it/2012/10/close-approach-of-asteroid-2012-tc4.html.

Notes from the Command Bunker: This NEO, or Near Earth Object, demonstrates the need we have for continued research of Earth-orbit-crossing-asteroids. It was only discovered on October 7! What if we had also discovered that it was on a collision course with a major city? Write to your member of the House of Representatives and urge them to demand that Congress and NASA allocate more funding for discovery and analysis of NEO's.