Astronomy Picture of the Day

NASA ^ | 8/17/02 | K. Zwintz, H. Tirado and A. Gomez

[sleavelessinseattle]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2002 August 17

Asteroid 2002 NY40
Credit: K. Zwintz (Univ. Viena), H. Tirado and A. Gomez (CTIO, NOAO)

Explanation: Asteroid 2002 NY40 will fly by planet Earth early in the morning August 18 Universal Time (late in the evening August 17 Eastern Daylight Time). Approaching to within about 530,000 kilometers or 1.3 times the Earth-Moon distance 2002 NY40 will definitely not be close enough to pose any danger of collision. But it will be close enough and just bright enough for experienced skygazers to see this 800 meter wide space rock in a small telescope or binoculars as it glides quickly through northern skies past the bright star Vega. It will also be close enough to ping with radar, and asteroid hunters using the large Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico expect to determine the three dimensional outline of 2002 NY40. Similar investigations of other near Earth asteroids have revealed some surprising shapes. In this five minute time exposure, recorded at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory on August 14, 2002 NY40 shows itself as a long smudge as it moves against a background of faint stars in the constellation Aquarius.

Tomorrow's picture: magnetic north

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[RightWhale]

There are a couple of such telescopes being built right now at NASA. One should be in operation by the end of the decade, which will enable imaging of some surface detail on earth-size planets at other stars. If they do better than the recently demised CONTOUR.

[MeekOneGOP]

hehehe!

Rummy, you tell the Brits to keep sifting the dirt for Osama.
Next up? SADdam ! Let's get him!

[sleavelessinseattle]

HEH HEH HEH!!! Hey now this guy is a star! Got NO problems with him appearing on this thread!!! I cannot get enough truck pictures of this guy! Thanks MM! *still laughing evilly!

[sleavelessinseattle]

I knew there was a space based gravimetric system coming up but not an optical one...outstanding! Guess I'll have to watch my cholesterol to stay alive long enough to see the pics! Thnx RW!

[BossyRoofer]

My daughter georgia who is 12 ask, is there any asteroids around the SUN that might be thrown into earth collision by solar plasma ejection? Or is something like that possible?

Great picture and we will be watching.

[sleavelessinseattle]

What an insightful question! I'd imagine close in to the sun, the heat would break up large objects and they'd sort of join the mass ejection which DOES affect the earth's magnetosphere and communications and sometimes our power grid through induction. I know that astronauts on the space station have experienced direct visual impressions of xrays passing unhindered through the station's densest shielding during flare activity...Against closed eyelids they experienced flashes bright enough to keep them up at night...One guy even slept with a lead battery between his head and the sun!
Talk about a flash of inspiration! Its GOOD to have a nice pad of atmosphere to burn up little presents from our personal fusion furnace!

[Madcelt]

Someone put me on the apod ping list please? Thank you.

[sleavelessinseattle]

As easily said as done! I'll submit the updated list to Petuniasevan upon her return...Welcome Welcome!

[MeekOneGOP]

LOL! Thanks, I love that one too! I posted these two on a Saddam thread
earlier today, with the Bush at the Wheel photo/caption below them.........

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[RightWhale]

any asteroids around the SUN that might be thrown into earth collision by solar plasma ejection?

Solar plasma would be highly energetic, but it is also very thin. A lot of extremely hot gas spread out over a very large volume of space. A solar plasma ejection could affect electronics, blow a microcircuit, things like that. It is not dense enough to modify an asteroid's orbit enough to collide with earth, UNLESS the asteroid's orbit were already close to intersecting earth's orbit anyway.

[sleavelessinseattle]

You know...Astronomers in the ME are going to have a devil of a time with transient light bursts and ground tremors purty soon and you know they play HAVOC with long exposure astrophotography...My position on the subject..."Get over it"... Get an image inverter to turn your telescope viewfinder to "right side up" viewing and watch the reduction of Baghdad HOURS before it is rebroadcast on CNN...BWAHAHA! Yer a pip!

[sleavelessinseattle]

good point...I see the primary effect of added mass in the flare as drag on all extrasolar objects in orbit around the sun...Its a change and we all know what happens if you stick a matchbook under one leg of a pool table...everything changes...Great Question! Great Answer, RW. Charateristic, I might add.

[Madcelt]

How Sen. Hollings survived this catastrophe remains a mystery to the present day.

Under the dinosaur droppings?

[Madcelt]

And YES, it was a big meadow muffin.

[sleavelessinseattle]

I can see some hungry grad student trying to back out the insulation "R" value from a fossilized dinosaur doodie! LOL!

[Madcelt]

ROFLMAO!

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

It probably was the "cloud" camera. We love the NASA pics. And hopefully one day there will be a "live" Web cam from a really good telescope/Observatory where we can watch the Cosmos "REALTIME" when we want to!! :o)

This ping list is fine, unless you feel there is something else we would be interested in. Feel free to ping us. We are sharing these things with our grandkids. Trying to wet their intellectual appetites, so to speak. ;o)

Thanks!

[sleavelessinseattle]

Be sure to take them to observatories, and star parties! There is nothing like putting your eye to an optic and seeing that ancient light first hand...Ironically noone in the profession really does that anymore thanks to digital imaging, but many universities and museums have great telescopes that are available to the public during special events...I can tell you from personal experience there is NO friendlier group of people than amateur astronomers...I have been a loyal attender of the Table mountain star party here in Washington and have NEVER been told "don't touch that!" People practically wrestle you over to their huge expensive telescope and Make you adust it yourself to overcome your fear of the instrument...Most of the ones I looked through required a STEPLADDER to get to the eyepiece! ALSO pick up a copy of Sky and Telescope magazine sometime and show them the color shots in the center...That's what converted me...
Pictures of Nebulae and Galaxies...Oh yeah!