Small asteroid to zip harmlessly past Earth Monday

Yahoo ^ | 6/24/11 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

PASADENA -- NASA says a newly discovered asteroid will have a close encounter with Earth on Monday, but there's no need to worry.

The space agency's Near-Earth Object Program Office says the small space rock -- dubbed 2011 MD -- will pass 7,500 miles above Earth's surface over the southern Atlantic Ocean at about 6:30 a.m. PDT.

[NormsRevenge]

estimated at 33 feet long, may be visible with a decent sized telescope

[NormsRevenge]

Near-Earth Objects (NEOs)
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

[bgill]

More illegal aliens headed our way.

[Frank_2001]

I say, nuke it anyhow!!!;)

[NormsRevenge]

I’m sure DHS is ready for ‘em.

[Steely Tom]

Mighty close, but not the closest this year.

According to this article, asteroid 2011 CQ1 passed within 3400 miles of Earth on February 4th of this year. However, 2011 CQ1 was only about one meter in size. This one, 2011 MD, is about 10 meters in its longest dimension.

[NormsRevenge]

I hear ya.. If we can’t take out a small one at 7.5K distance..

good way to get rid of some old nukes to.. Yup.

[NormsRevenge]

When you can actually see and feel the atmosphere respond to a high speed object, Ouch.. that is too close for comfort.. I love the video of the bus sized object flying over the football field at a fairly low elevation.. one of these days..

[Allegra]

WE'RE ALL DOOMED!!

[Tucker39]

Help me, please. I’m getting brain cramps! It is going to pass over the Southern ATLANTIC Ocean at approx. 6:30 A.M. PACIFIC Daylight Time. Why would these nerds not announce the time as it will be in the Time Zone in which the event is actually going to take place?

Yes, of course, I can calculate what time it will be in the EDT Zone, but it’s the principle of another gubmint bureau publishing useless information.

[SkyDancer]

Just Kidding .....NASA

[McGruff]

Sounds too much like “Small plane hits World Trade Center”.

[Steely Tom]

Well, in fairness, the people who generated this story are in Pasadena CA. They may well be the ones who are monitoring whatever instruments are going to try to get a picture of this thing, so they have to know when to roust themselves out of bed in their time zone.

Besides, since they're Californians, they can't imagine why anyone would want to know what time it is anywhere but in California.

[nomorelurker]

There is some speculation that this is actually an old rocket as it orbit so closely matches that of Earth.

[NormsRevenge]

This is only running on the Murky Newz for some reason too, said AP, oh well.. lol

[Tunehead54]

“Houston? We’ve had a problem ...”

Don’t bother looking - that’s the correct quote. ;-)

[AFreeBird]

Southern Atlantic? I don’t think my telescope sees things visible in the southern hemisphere.

[GATOR NAVY]

You know what they say-a miss is as good as 7500 miles.

[silverleaf]

I used to visit that site frequently

But now notice, what happens when yoo try to search the orbital paths of Elenin or Honda

[messierhunter]

What happens? I’ve been able to get the orbital data no problem.

[messierhunter]

It’ll be visible in the northern hemisphere just a few hours beforehand, but it’ll be fairly dim at about magnitude 15. It’ll be moving at a good clip too, about 1 arcsecond or more per second.

[silverleaf]

please send me the nasa jpl link that is working for you

every time I do even a query on Elenin (or Elinin, or any combination of its designator, C/2010 X etc) or try to get orbital diagram for Honda, the web site crashes

[phoneman08]

What sort of damage would an hit by an object of this size and relative velocity do of any?

[Oztrich Boy]

Women, children, and minorities hardest hit.

[Las Vegas Dave]

Of possible interest to the UAP ping list?

[Quix]

THX THX.

[bgill]

Seven signs of the Apocalypse = Floods, equakes, droughts, tsunamis, Obama, terrorists, and now asteroids.

[Yardstick]

Well, if the moon is a big lump of cheese, then what is this thing...an olive?