A newly found asteroid, 2013 EC can be seen in the lower left corner of the red box in this image. Screen capture from Virtual Telescope webcast on 3/3/2013.
Posted on 03/04/2013 7:29:22 AM PST by Red Badger
A newly found asteroid will pass just inside the orbit of the Moon, with its closest approach on March 4, 2013 at 07:35 UTC. Named 2013 EC, the asteroid is about the size of the space rock that exploded over Russia two and a half weeks ago, somewhere between 10-17 meters wide (the Russian meteorite is estimated to be about 15 meters wide when it entered Earth's atmosphere). 2013 EC was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Observatory in Arizona on March 2. There is no chance this asteroid will hit Earth.
2013 EC will come within 396,000 kilometers from Earth, (246,000 miles, or around 1.0 lunar distances, 0.0026 AU. The Moon's distance from the Earth varies between 363,104 km (225,622 miles) at perigee (closest) and 406,696 km (252,088 miles) at apogee (most distant point).
"That we are finding all these asteroids recently does not mean that we are being visited by more asteroids," Masi said during the webcast, "just that our ability to detect them has gotten so much better. Our technology has improved a lot over the past decades."
More info about 2013 EC on the JPL Small Body Database.
More information: Universe Today
A newly found asteroid, 2013 EC can be seen in the lower left corner of the red box in this image. Screen capture from Virtual Telescope webcast on 3/3/2013.
It’s good that we can track objects that small that far, means we can track the cataclysmic size ones farther out and earlier.
For what purpose? To then do what about it?
Just food for thought.
There was a NASA scientist on the TV show “King of the Nerds” who works on asteroid tracking for global protection. She was unable to solve some simple physics problems. I feel so safe knowing that she is working on this.
Look at it this way, if an asteroid hits, will it really matter whether or not we know it’s coming?
How long will the UN allow the citizens of earth to be terrorized by the spectre of annihilation?!?!
Space rocks exploding in our atmosphere... two “near miss” asteroids in less than a month (earth time)...How much are we to endure?!?!
Surely the UN, along with our own President Zer0, has some plan to mitigate this threat to the planet by taxing the US.
“The do what about it”
Ah. That’s a great question. To take action and deflect it so it doesn’t hit us. This is what scientists and governments should be figuring out. National and global defense is the highest priority. Without that nothing else matters. Unlike global warming these asteroids pose a real danger and eventually one of them WILL head our way. As of now there is no real plan for what to do about it.
There is a plan to divert asteroids that are plotted to hit the earth by sending up a ship to get close to the rock and it’s mass will attract it just to change the orbit. It doesn’t have to change it by much considering the asteroid is moving around 30,000 mph and the earth even faster.
Well hopefully in the future someone will be able to push them into orbits that don’t threaten us. Those seeking to mine the asteroids will be prime candidates for the job.
A few feet per second 5 or 10 years out makes all the difference in the world.
The luddites won’t like it but they’re a bunch of hypocrites anyway so screw em.
“Look at it this way, if an asteroid hits, will it really matter whether or not we know it’s coming?”
Depending on its size and the amount of warning it might matter. If it was going to hit a city and you had a week’s notice you might save a million people.
“There is a plan to divert asteroids that are plotted to hit the earth by sending up a ship to get close to the rock and it’s mass will attract it just to change the orbit. It doesn’t have to change it by much considering the asteroid is moving around 30,000 mph and the earth even faster.”
I’m no physicist but I doubt that a ship with the mass of a space shuttle would change the trajectory of an asteroid 100X its mass unless it was years out.
It would cause me to release funds for a heck of a party, at the very least.
/johnny
IIn a different world, it would matter. All of the brightest minds would come together and try and “do something abut it”. IN such a world, we would still have a decent space program, a viable nuclear program and thus, maybe be able to destroy ar at least deflect an asteroid.
But in our world...we can’t even fix our electrical grid and make it relaible, like it was in the “old days”.
“”All part of the big plan”.
Nudge them. The same force that can nudge an asteroid a foot at 1000 miles can nudge an asteroid can nudge it nineteen miles at 100 million miles.
Why didn’t you tell me this a few days ago. Now I don’t have time to pack!
START DIGGING!
Watch "Deep Impact". Sure, it's a fictional movie but I don't believe for a second that the US Gov't would tell you anything about it. In the movie, The White Hut only told us about it after a reporter discovered that it was being hushed up.
The news would leak out. But there is almost no way to know exactly where a large celestial body will hit, the magnitude of the impact, or the aftereffects. Knowing in advance wouldn’t help anyone. The mad, panicked rush to nowhere would probably kill the most people.
Anyway, I don’t think the world, or OUR world, will end by the impact of an asteroid/comet. There may be some near misses, as Scripture indicates incredible signs in the heavens as a harbinger of the end of the age. I’m thinking that there will be unbelievable never-before-seen meteor showers, like the falling of the stars, and the moon turning to blood (through tremendous additions of oxidized metallic particles from the meteors.) Just my opinion, but I think this will be within our lifetime.
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