Hefty Asteroid to Sweep Near Earth. (Almost a half mile wide. Can be Seen w/Binoculars)

Sky and Telescope ^ | Roger W. Sinnott

[Joe Hadenuf]

I'm not sure, but I do know that an annual meteor shower is coming soon, it's called the Perseids meteor shower.

From Sky and Telescope:

By Roger W. Sinnott

The thin crescent Moon sets early on the evening of August 12th, leaving the sky fully dark for this year’s Perseid meteor shower. The display should peak later that night for observers throughout the Northern Hemisphere, especially as morning twilight begins. That’s when the radiant (the patch of sky between Perseus and Cassiopeia from which the Perseids appear to come) is highest in midnorthern latitudes. Skywatchers can expect to see 60 or more Perseids per hour, provided the sky is very clear and dark. If you miss the Perseids that night, all is not lost. The shower lasts for two weeks or so, with excellent rates in the predawn hours of August 10th through 15th.

Far fewer meteors will appear before midnight, even on the night of the shower’s maximum, because the radiant is then quite low in the sky. The radiant is always low or below the horizon for countries like Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, where few, if any, Perseids can be seen. The 1992 return of Comet Swift-Tuttle, parent comet of the Perseids, brought with it a “new peak” that was superimposed on the shallower, traditional Perseid maximum. By 1999, however, the new peak had greatly subsided (Sky & Telescope: August 2001, page 108), and it's completely missing from first-look analyses of the 2000 and 2001 Perseids by the International Meteor Organization. So the forecast for 2002 reads much as it would have in the 1980s: the Perseids should peak for 12 hours or more, centered on the time when the Sun’s ecliptic longitude is 140.0° (equinox 2000.0). That translates to 22h Universal Time on August 12th this year. European observers are optimally positioned for the Perseid peak, but North Americans are not far behind.

Simply counting meteors is one good way for amateurs to contribute to meteor science. The techniques are explained in the meteor section of this Web site. But the Perseids are rich in bright meteors with long-lasting trains, and skywatchers may find other projects almost irresistible.

[cinFLA]

One of the only accomplishments of the Clinton administration was NASA's inception of more numerous, cheap and more powerful space exploration platforms.

Why do you give Clinton credit. It takes years to get a program off the ground so they must have been initiated BEFORE Clinton.

[baseballfanjm]

But those boulders would burn up, unless you mean that's how big they'd be once they got through the atmosphere. Anyway, all this asteroid talk is starting to get to my head. People are starting to talk abut an asteroid with a tiny chance of hitting Earth in 17 years like the world is ending next Tuesday. Not that we shouldn't pay attention, but to astronamers if an asteroid has a 1 in 1,000 chance of hitting, it's doomsday. Anyway, I bet we'd discover some form of asteroid deflection very soon and get it built a heck of a lot faster than the pessimistic, doomsaying scientists say if it were funded.

[baseballfanjm]

I don't quite get why everyone is treating the asteroid like it WILL hit. I'm not replying to directly you, but in general. We should pay attention, but why get panicky over something with a very slim chance of hitting in 17 years? Second, if it does hit, we will have years of advanced warning and we can get to work preparing. I think when we think of an asteroid strike, we naturally think of the dinosaurs. But those dinos weren't too smart. We could find a way to make people safe and wait it out. I know it's not that simple, but the point is that we will have years to prepare, since this thing won't destroy the planet (the one that took out the dinos was nine times bigger and packed 100 times the power of this one). Anyway, it is very important that we build an asteroid detection and deflection system. But I'm more concerned about being blindsided by a rock we don't know about with no warning than with a rock we have a lot of time to prepare for and has a very slim chance of hitting at all.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Actually, I believe house size chunks of a larger asteroid would have no trouble surviving our atmosphere and impacting the earth. Again, If an asteroid the size of a house entered the atmosphere, it would definitely strike the earth, causing an unbelievable explosion, and completely destroy a major city if it happened to fall on one.

And I also think astronomers would be the last ones to yell doomsday! They generally stick to facts and understand that actually getting hit by a sizable asteriod is very remote.

[baseballfanjm]

You're right. I was wrong about the astronamers also. I'm just getting annoyed by the number of people treating this asteroid as if the end is nigh. It's what happens when you don't have info. We've been told only that the asteroid is very large and will pass quite near to us at the least. The doomsayers are starting to bug me, and when I'm annoyed I don't always get my facts completely straight.

[Consort]

If we handle it correctly, we can use it as a second moon, as in ...moon over Miami and Fresno...or as a moon going around our moon. The down side is if both moons are full at the same time, we'll have twice as many lunatics.

[aruanan]

If we handle it correctly, we can use it as a second moon, as in ...moon over Miami and Fresno...or as a moon going around our moon. The down side is if both moons are full at the same time, we'll have twice as many lunatics.

I wonder what the diameter of the orbit would be if around the moon.

[RightWhale]

the orbit would be if around the moon.

Unless you intend to actively maintain the object's orbit forever, there will be no suitable permanent orbit. It will probably crash into the moon at some point, or escape from the moon and go out of control. Could go anywhere. The two exceptions are the moon's L-4 and L-5 points where the object could be parked safely for an extended period of time, even if not forever.