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Asteroid To Pass Close By

Brown

Penultimate Amazing
Brown
Joined
Aug 3, 2001
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From Yahoo and AP:
100-foot diameter asteroid will pass within 26,500 miles of Earth on Thursday evening, the closest-ever brush on record by a space rock, NASA astronomers said.
...
The asteroid, 2004 FH, was expected to make its closest approach at 5:08 p.m. EST, streaking over the southern Atlantic Ocean. It should be visible through binoculars to stargazers across the southern hemisphere, as well as throughout Asia and Europe, said astronomer Steve Chesley, also of JPL.
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Just for scale, 26,500 miles is just a bit larger than the Earth's circumference.
 
I saw a couple of billboards a few years ago from some church or other . They were a scream one said " Jesus is comming and boy is he pissed", the other said "Don't make me come down there-God "
 
Brown said:
From Yahoo and AP:Just for scale, 26,500 miles is just a bit larger than the Earth's circumference.
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Another way to look at how close this baby will be is to consider that geostationary sattelites orbit the Earth at a height of 22,300 miles. Very close indeed.
 
If memory serves, the geostationary orbit is about 23,000 miles up, and is populated by a number of communication satellites. The asteroid might be closer to some of our communication satellites than our communication satellites are to us.
 
Re: Re: Asteroid To Pass Close By

DanishDynamite said:
Another way to look at how close this baby will be is to consider that geostationary sattelites orbit the Earth at a height of 22,300 miles. Very close indeed.
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22,300 miles, not 23,000 miles. I stand corrected.
 
Whoa, thought I felt a breeze there. Maybe it was just my imagination.
 
Oh, please! I'm sick of all the fear mongering these asteroid watchers are trying to do. Asteroid astershmoid! It's all crap. They have been wrong about every one in the past, they will be wrong about every one in the future. Sure a signifigantly large asteroid hits the earth every, what, 100,000 years, 1 million years? The odds of that happening within our lifetime are infinitesimal.

Vieled attempts at funding increases, I'd wager.

To all asteroid fear mongers: SHUT UP!
 
Hand Bent Spoon said:
Oh, please! I'm sick of all the fear mongering these asteroid watchers are trying to do. Asteroid astershmoid! It's all crap. They have been wrong about every one in the past, they will be wrong about every one in the future. Sure a signifigantly large asteroid hits the earth every, what, 100,000 years, 1 million years? The odds of that happening within our lifetime are infinitesimal.

Vieled attempts at funding increases, I'd wager.

To all asteroid fear mongers: SHUT UP!
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Stop being such a drama queen.

It's the press that overstates things. Astronomers (at least all the ones I know) are very clear about stating the probabilities and dangers. The problem is the press.

An astronomer says something like, "This asteroid has a 1 in 1000 chance of hitting the Earth, but we'll be taking more images and as we do so we'll refine the calculations and that probability will almost certainly drop to zero."

The press reports say, "Killer asteroid on collision course with Earth!"
 
Brown wrote:
Just for scale, 26,500 miles is just a bit larger than the Earth's circumference.
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Or about 1/10th the distance to the moon!

Actually, the chance of a major asteroid striking the Earth within any given lifetime is about 1 in 200.
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What?!? 1 in 200 what? Lifetimes? With the population of the earth as it is, that's alot of asteroids!!:p
 
Well, I guess it missed.

It is reassuring to know that if one of these killer space rocks comes by again that we'll have at least 2 days warning.

More than enough time to send Bruce Willis up in a rocket, but not enough time for a cult of more than say, 10, to go all heaven's gate.
 
This asteroid was found by noticing that something small was moving with respect to the background stars.

I recall from my flying days that you could tell if another plane was on a collision course with you, because that object would appear stationary out your windshield.

So does this mean that an object that's on a genuine collision course with us would be less likely to be noticed?
 
CurtC said:
This asteroid was found by noticing that something small was moving with respect to the background stars.

I recall from my flying days that you could tell if another plane was on a collision course with you, because that object would appear stationary out your windshield.

So does this mean that an object that's on a genuine collision course with us would be less likely to be noticed?
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No, because we're also moving, at a much slower speed. Asteroids and meteors on a collision course sort of come at us from the side, not head on. We can also look for anything that's moving, calculate its orbit and see if it's likely to hit us on a subsequent pass.

Edited to correct poor spelling
 
In flight training, I learned that although you may be moving at high speed, and another plane is moving at high speed in a random direction relative to you, it's simple to tell if you're on a collision course, because that other plane will stay in the same spot from your point of view. This would also apply to the Earth - if our track is fairly linear, and the asteroid's track is fairly linear (both of which will be very closely true for a few-day time window), the asteroid should stay in the same spot relative to the background stars if we're on a collision course.
 
wollery said:
No, because we're also moving, at a much slower speed. Asteroids and meteors on a collision course sort of come at us from the side, not head on.
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Even so, it would still not appear to change position relative to the background, unless it changed speed or direction.

Edited to Add: But I didn't consider until just now that while an asteroid on a collision course wouldn't change direction, the Earth is constantly changing direction, so said asteroid would, indeed, change position. Of course, that direction change (of the Earth) is predictable, so we're able to tell if Asteroid X will come close in the future.
 
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