The Astronomy Thread.


At the beginning of the year, scientists at the Minor Planet Center at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian, logged the discovery of an asteroid identified by an amateur astronomer. Within a day, however, they deleted the item, called 2018 CN41, because they realized it wasn’t a natural object: It was a Tesla strapped to part of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

“The designation 2018 CN41, announced in MPEC 2025-A38 on Jan 2, 2025, UT, is being deleted,” reads the retraction notice. “The next day it was pointed out the orbit matches an artificial object 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla roadster.”
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I just got a Facebook post from a friend saying Saturn is up and you can see the rings. Unfortunately, my star map says it is too low in the sky to see from my back yard, and I think it will set before I could get my telescope and travel to a good spot. Looks like Jupiter is up high in the south (from Central U.S.) though. Even though I've made some specific late-night-cold trips to see things like this, at the moment I'm having a bout of fatigue that's only moving me to my bed in a few minutes.
 
arthwollipot said:
futurism.com

Scientists Say If We're Extremely Lucky, This Asteroid May Put Us Out of Our Misery

Astronomers have spotted a space rock, an estimated 200 feet in length, that they say just may be headed for Earth.
futurism.com futurism.com
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60m? Unlikely to have anything more than local effects. Of course, if it lands in the middle of London, New York, or any other major city, it would not be good. Chances of that? Minimal.

EDIT:

The impactor that created Barringer (Meteor) crater that left a ~ 1 km crater was estimated to be ~ 50m in diameter, iirc.
 
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jonesdave116 said:
60m? Unlikely to have anything more than local effects. Of course, if it lands in the middle of London, New York, or any other major city, it would not be good. Chances of that? Minimal.
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If you actually read the article, it goes on to say:

On a serious note, that potential collision course probably shouldn't keep us up at night, Rankin assured the NYT.

If it were to collide with our planet, it wouldn't threaten the entire thing, though it could easily wipe out an entire city. An asteroid roughly similar in size impacted a remote region of Siberia in 1908, obliterating 800 square miles of forest.
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Ibid.
 
"Scientists Say If We're Extremely Lucky, This Asteroid May Put Us Out of Our Misery" - right - I never click on obvious click bait. Sounds like the author needs to be put out of his misery though. Maybe he/she is hoping it hits his/her city and that's what he/she meant?
 
bigred said:
"Scientists Say If We're Extremely Lucky, This Asteroid May Put Us Out of Our Misery" - right - I never click on obvious click bait. Sounds like the author needs to be put out of his misery though. Maybe he/she is hoping it hits his/her city and that's what he/she meant?
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The article starts with that tone, but gets more serious from about the third paragraph. It's not long. Why not read it?
 
It will miss us. Here is the link that the Great Zaganza did not provide.
NASA has given a major update on the 'city-killing' asteroid which has been hurtling towards Earth – and it finally makes for pleasant reading. After months of increasing odds, the space agency has now revealed that the asteroid 2024 YR4 now has a negligible chance of hitting the planet in 2032. According to NASA's Sentry impact monitoring system, the odds of the asteroid hitting Earth on December 22, 2032, are now just one in 26,000.
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They are using the old sets from the Apollo mission movies, and still they've not fixed the obvious give aways such as no stars!
 
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