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Though this was pretty relevant, some of the other pics are cool.

The story's link points to a page that changes every day. The real (old, as of midnight) picture is at this page.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020630.html

Galileo's two planned visits to the asteroid belt provided the first and second opportunities for close observation of these bodies: in October 1991 the spacecraft flew by asteroid Gaspra, obtaining the world's first close-up asteroid images; in August 1993 it flew by a second asteroid, Ida, and discovered the first confirmed asteroid moon.

I saw this "news" long time ago in a magazine - and it seems that actually this is the first known asteroid with moon. Date in press release you linked is September 20, 1994... It just happened to be chosen as a astronomy picture of the day. Quite old news for the first page?

Has anybody but NASA been to the moon lately?

Actually, yes. The Soviet Union sent many unmanned probes to the moon and retreived moon rocks in the process. This page details the Soviet Luna program.

Notice that the last mission in this series was Luna 24 that returned a "lunar sample" in 1976. Also notice that that last NASA mission to land on the moon (and to bring back samples) was 1972. So the Soviet missions were more recent, although I'm not sure what significance that has.

By an amazing coincidence, I was watching the movie "Apollo 13" tonight on TV and it got me looking up facts about the moon on NASA's web site. I happened to come across a page that tells you how to request lunar samples. From that page:

NASA policies define lunar samples as a limited national resource and future heritage and require that samples be released only for approved applications in research, education, and public display. To meet that responsibility, NASA carefully screens all sample requests with most of the review processes being focused at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC). Individuals requesting lunar samples should follow the steps given below for the appropriate category of sample.

I don't know whether this applies to the particular Honduras lunar sample, but I thought it was interesting.

...at least that's the best info I can find at the moment. Check out the Moon page at the National Space Science Data Center. Look at "Luna" landings, specifically Luna 16, 20, and 24.

If you want to see where they landed, check out the Jules Verne Voyager Java applet. Choose "USSR Luna Sites" from the dropdown. The sites will show up as purple dots. Click and drag a box to zoom in on that box.

So, with only 301g of moon soil, I don't think the Russians were giving much of it away. (The U.S. brought back hundreds of kilos.) Also, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are the only countries to have collected samples from the moon. Notable, however, are the Japanese crash of satellite Hiten into the moon in 1993, and Hughes Global Services' flyby of the moon with the satellite AsiaSat 3 in 1998, which had been originally launched by the Chinese.

Given the above, I would therefore assume that any moon rocks possesed by collectors were either purchased or stolen from the U.S. government, since the only other country to have any is Russia, and they don't have very many.

...at least that's the best info I can find at the moment. Check out the Moon page at the National Space Science Data Center. Look at "Luna" landings, specifically Luna 16, 20, and 24.

If you want to see where they landed, check out the Jules Verne Voyager Java applet. Choose "USSR Luna Sites" from the dropdown. The sites will show up as purple dots. Click and drag a box to zoom in on that box.

So, with only 301g of moon soil, I don't think the Russians were giving much of it away. (The U.S. brought back hundreds of kilos.) Also, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are the only countries to have collected samples from the moon. Notable, however, are the Japanese crash of satellite Hiten into the moon in 1993, and Hughes Global Services' flyby of the moon with the satellite AsiaSat 3 in 1998, which had been originally launched by the Chinese.

Given the above, I would therefore assume that any moon rocks possesed by collectors were either purchased or stolen from the U.S. government, since the only other country to have any is Russia, and they don't have very many.

...at least that's the best info I can find at the moment. Check out the Moon page at the National Space Science Data Center. Look at "Luna" landings, specifically Luna 16, 20, and 24.

If you want to see where they landed, check out the Jules Verne Voyager Java applet. Choose "USSR Luna Sites" from the dropdown. The sites will show up as purple dots. Click and drag a box to zoom in on that box.

So, with only 301g of moon soil, I don't think the Russians were giving much of it away. (The U.S. brought back hundreds of kilos.) Also, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are the only countries to have collected samples from the moon. Notable, however, are the Japanese crash of satellite Hiten into the moon in 1993, and Hughes Global Services' flyby of the moon with the satellite AsiaSat 3 in 1998, which had been originally launched by the Chinese.

Given the above, I would therefore assume that any moon rocks possesed by collectors were either purchased or stolen from the U.S. government, since the only other country to have any is Russia, and they don't have very many.

...at least that's the best info I can find at the moment. Check out the Moon page at the National Space Science Data Center. Look at "Luna" landings, specifically Luna 16, 20, and 24.

If you want to see where they landed, check out the Jules Verne Voyager Java applet. Choose "USSR Luna Sites" from the dropdown. The sites will show up as purple dots. Click and drag a box to zoom in on that box.

So, with only 301g of moon soil, I don't think the Russians were giving much of it away. (The U.S. brought back hundreds of kilos.) Also, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are the only countries to have collected samples from the moon. Notable, however, are the Japanese crash of satellite Hiten into the moon in 1993, and Hughes Global Services' flyby of the moon with the satellite AsiaSat 3 in 1998, which had been originally launched by the Chinese.

Given the above, I would therefore assume that any moon rocks possesed by collectors were either purchased or stolen from the U.S. government, since the only other country to have any is Russia, and they don't have very many.

...at least that's the best info I can find at the moment. Check out the Moon page at the National Space Science Data Center. Look at "Luna" landings, specifically Luna 16, 20, and 24.

If you want to see where they landed, check out the Jules Verne Voyager Java applet. Choose "USSR Luna Sites" from the dropdown. The sites will show up as purple dots. Click and drag a box to zoom in on that box.

So, with only 301g of moon soil, I don't think the Russians were giving much of it away. (The U.S. brought back hundreds of kilos.) Also, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are the only countries to have collected samples from the moon. Notable, however, are the Japanese crash of satellite Hiten into the moon in 1993, and Hughes Global Services' flyby of the moon with the satellite AsiaSat 3 in 1998, which had been originally launched by the Chinese.

Given the above, I would therefore assume that any moon rocks possesed by collectors were either purchased or stolen from the U.S. government, since the only other country to have any is Russia, and they don't have very many.

...at least that's the best info I can find at the moment. Check out the Moon page at the National Space Science Data Center. Look at "Luna" landings, specifically Luna 16, 20, and 24.

If you want to see where they landed, check out the Jules Verne Voyager Java applet. Choose "USSR Luna Sites" from the dropdown. The sites will show up as purple dots. Click and drag a box to zoom in on that box.

So, with only 301g of moon soil, I don't think the Russians were giving much of it away. (The U.S. brought back hundreds of kilos.) Also, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are the only countries to have collected samples from the moon. Notable, however, are the Japanese crash of satellite Hiten into the moon in 1993, and Hughes Global Services' flyby of the moon with the satellite AsiaSat 3 in 1998, which had been originally launched by the Chinese.

Given the above, I would therefore assume that any moon rocks possesed by collectors were either purchased or stolen from the U.S. government, since the only other country to have any is Russia, and they don't have very many.

...at least that's the best info I can find at the moment. Check out the Moon page at the National Space Science Data Center. Look at "Luna" landings, specifically Luna 16, 20, and 24.

If you want to see where they landed, check out the Jules Verne Voyager Java applet. Choose "USSR Luna Sites" from the dropdown. The sites will show up as purple dots. Click and drag a box to zoom in on that box.

So, with only 301g of moon soil, I don't think the Russians were giving much of it away. (The U.S. brought back hundreds of kilos.) Also, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. are the only countries to have collected samples from the moon. Notable, however, are the Japanese crash of satellite Hiten into the moon in 1993, and Hughes Global Services' flyby of the moon with the satellite AsiaSat 3 in 1998, which had been originally launched by the Chinese.

Given the above, I would therefore assume that any moon rocks possesed by collectors were either purchased or stolen from the U.S. government, since the only other country to have any is Russia, and they don't have very many.

I would rather have six dozen Terrestrial Planet Finders than a single manned mission to mars.

As for a moonbase, that can wait a few hundred years, too.

I would rather have six dozen Terrestrial Planet Finders than a single manned mission to mars.

As for a moonbase, that can wait a few hundred years, too.

detailing past and future versions of Eclipse. From the eclipse home page.

detailing past and future versions of Eclipse. From the eclipse home page.

Dr. Kroo was one of the only academics to work closely with the inventor of an even more radical concept called the Oblique All Wing (aka Oblique Flying Wing) Supersonic Transport. The OAW SST concept originated in the 1940s with supersonics pioneer Robert Theo Jones (who preferred to be called "RT Jones").

I became interested in Jones' concept when an article (very similar to the one available online from Hiller Museum of Aviation) appeared in "The West" magazine in the early 90s. The thing that hooked me about the idea was that RT Jones had originated the supersonics models for swept wings used for all of aviation and had come to the conclusion that:

1. The optimal supersonic wing was an ellipse with no body that tilted into the wind more and more as it went faster and faster -- an amazingly simple and elegant concept.
2. The price per passenger mile for a trans-Pacific flight would be no more than for a 747 even though the flight time would be half.

Having hooked me at the time I was most active in aerospace politics I decided to look into why the supersonic wind tunnel at NASA Ames wasn't being utilized by the Stanford crew under the ultimate mentorship of RT Jones (who it was obvious to me, was nearing the end of his functioning life). As it turns out there were some problems with NASA HQ not wanting to have confusing signals sent to Congress about which direction NASA was going to go with its High Speed Civil Transport program. There were funds at stake here. At one point NASA Ames attempted to take a small part of its "discretionary" budget and fund the supersonic wind tunnel runs of a model of the OAW SST, but when it did so NASA HQ got "wind" of it and not only forbade the research but docked NASA Ames an equal amount of money in the next year's "discretionary" budget.

When I heard about this, I became angry.

I plunked down some dough and flew RT down to meet with Congressman Ron Packard (R 43rd district CA) and discuss the situation. We got some other Congressmen to look at the situation a bit as well. The real clincher didn't happen until I discovered the person with the most intimate knowledge of the supersonic modeling equations was going to work for Airbus after having been trained by RT Jones at Stanford. This gave me the leverage I needed to push the "American Competitiveness" buttons with the Congressmen -- and I did just that.

This had repercussions.

The initial result was a specific line item in the NASA bill. This was to send a signal to NASA HQ that they weren't to stop the supersonic windtunnel testing from going forward at NASA Ames -- that the OAW SST model from Stanford and RT Jones would be experimentally tested against the equations. The second result was that someone's head was going to roll for letting the cat out of the bag about NASA HQ's bad behavior. I think the guy who got demoted was Tom Gregory even though he wasn't the source of the dirt -- so I have to apologize to him for the consequences of my rather heavy-handed politics -- but the consequences for the testing were at least a little good.

The tests got run, finally.

RT Jones was pretty sick the last time I talked to him -- and discouraged. The fact is he was within a few years of dying of a prolonged illness. He didn't think it was worth pursuing the OAW SST anymore -- that a subsonic 747 style jet could be made more comfortable for the long flight. It was sad hearing him talk that way about his brain child but it was understandable given the life-long struggle for acceptance of the idea and his weakened state. Nevertheless, the idea remains an intriguing if not viable one -- and someday I hope there is at least a FedEx next-business-day robotic package OAW SST fueled by methane -- the system I first thought would be viable.

Dr. Kroo was one of the only academics to work closely with the inventor of an even more radical concept called the Oblique All Wing (aka Oblique Flying Wing) Supersonic Transport. The OAW SST concept originated in the 1940s with supersonics pioneer Robert Theo Jones (who preferred to be called "RT Jones").

I became interested in Jones' concept when an article (very similar to the one available online from Hiller Museum of Aviation) appeared in "The West" magazine in the early 90s. The thing that hooked me about the idea was that RT Jones had originated the supersonics models for swept wings used for all of aviation and had come to the conclusion that:

1. The optimal supersonic wing was an ellipse with no body that tilted into the wind more and more as it went faster and faster -- an amazingly simple and elegant concept.
2. The price per passenger mile for a trans-Pacific flight would be no more than for a 747 even though the flight time would be half.

Having hooked me at the time I was most active in aerospace politics I decided to look into why the supersonic wind tunnel at NASA Ames wasn't being utilized by the Stanford crew under the ultimate mentorship of RT Jones (who it was obvious to me, was nearing the end of his functioning life). As it turns out there were some problems with NASA HQ not wanting to have confusing signals sent to Congress about which direction NASA was going to go with its High Speed Civil Transport program. There were funds at stake here. At one point NASA Ames attempted to take a small part of its "discretionary" budget and fund the supersonic wind tunnel runs of a model of the OAW SST, but when it did so NASA HQ got "wind" of it and not only forbade the research but docked NASA Ames an equal amount of money in the next year's "discretionary" budget.

When I heard about this, I became angry.

I plunked down some dough and flew RT down to meet with Congressman Ron Packard (R 43rd district CA) and discuss the situation. We got some other Congressmen to look at the situation a bit as well. The real clincher didn't happen until I discovered the person with the most intimate knowledge of the supersonic modeling equations was going to work for Airbus after having been trained by RT Jones at Stanford. This gave me the leverage I needed to push the "American Competitiveness" buttons with the Congressmen -- and I did just that.

This had repercussions.

The initial result was a specific line item in the NASA bill. This was to send a signal to NASA HQ that they weren't to stop the supersonic windtunnel testing from going forward at NASA Ames -- that the OAW SST model from Stanford and RT Jones would be experimentally tested against the equations. The second result was that someone's head was going to roll for letting the cat out of the bag about NASA HQ's bad behavior. I think the guy who got demoted was Tom Gregory even though he wasn't the source of the dirt -- so I have to apologize to him for the consequences of my rather heavy-handed politics -- but the consequences for the testing were at least a little good.

The tests got run, finally.

RT Jones was pretty sick the last time I talked to him -- and discouraged. The fact is he was within a few years of dying of a prolonged illness. He didn't think it was worth pursuing the OAW SST anymore -- that a subsonic 747 style jet could be made more comfortable for the long flight. It was sad hearing him talk that way about his brain child but it was understandable given the life-long struggle for acceptance of the idea and his weakened state. Nevertheless, the idea remains an intriguing if not viable one -- and someday I hope there is at least a FedEx next-business-day robotic package OAW SST fueled by methane -- the system I first thought would be viable.

FWIW, the X-29 is a highly manoeuverable experimental aircraft. One of the reasons it's so agile is that it's instable - so much so that it requires a computer to fly it; people aren't capable of controlling it. Same goes for the F-117 (nickname: the wobbly goblin). Stability is an old problem; computers are usually pretty good at that type problem.

Then you should tell that to NASA, smartass:

"".. configuration called the BWB was conceived by the McDonnell Douglas Corporation."

In actual fact rocket engines are 'heat engines' and more efficient than jet engines and routinely achieve 80% efficiency.

I think not. A rocket engine is not a heat engine. And the maximum efficiency of a heat engine is 27%.


Undercarriage costs weight too.

The shuttle already has an undercarriage, as is evidenced by this picture on this site

In actual fact rocket engines are 'heat engines' and more efficient than jet engines and routinely achieve 80% efficiency.

I think not. A rocket engine is not a heat engine. And the maximum efficiency of a heat engine is 27%.


Undercarriage costs weight too.

The shuttle already has an undercarriage, as is evidenced by this picture on this site

A good site for tracking sattilites is J-TRACK on NASA.gov A free little java app that updates satilite positions in real time and also has the ability to let you find out when a a selected sat is passing over you by entering your ZIP code. you can also access this link by going to the DR SKY website. Pretty cool.

Daytime for the satellite, silly. From the obit of the other AO satellites (from j-track 3d), I suspect AO-7 is in a low orbit, so it's day-night cycle is quite short.

This amazing resiliance demonstrated by electronics (not just this but also Mir and Poineer 10, and there are probably others), combined with the fact that electronics are starting to get smart and escape (as reported on Slashdot, but I can't find the story now), is rather alarming. Sure, right now it's durable space probes and escaping benign experimental robots, but what will happen in the near future? You'll throw out your toaster and the thing will come back ten years later seeking revenge. Combine this with the work on modular robots and you won't only have a pissed toaster out for vengeance, but it'll be riding on that lawn mower you tossed earlier, firing AOL CDs and spraying used motor oil. *shudder*

As for the concern about stable cameras, NASA has been flying mounted scopes for some time. The guidance and anti-vibration systems are good enough to conduct real astronomy. In fact, craft such as SOFIA are pushing the technology even further. Yes, scopes on aircraft is outstanding practice.

One might, however, ask if the glare of the twilight combined with observing low to the horizon will impact their ability to find Vulcans. Compared to the Eclipse method, the f-18 observing conditions are poor (low in the horizon, reduced image brightness, glare from the Sun that just set, dust, etc.). On the other hand the number of minutes to observe during totality (see my other posting on this topic) are limited. A single f-18 run can rack up more minutes than ground based eclipse imagery can in a decade.

Better would be to fly cameras on an f-18 or Concord or SR71 in the Moon's shadow during a total eclipse. You can get the best of both worlds.

Better still would be to observe from space with a special telescope that can take images near the sun.

NOTE: Scopes like the Hubble cannot look too close to the Sun for obvious reasons. That is why you have and will never see a Hubble image of Mercury, let alone Vulcan asteroids.

Craft such as SOHO were not designed to look for Vulcans because they, if they exist, are too dim.

Vulcan asteroids, if they exist, are very dim. Bright Vulcans would have been spotted long ago during some eclipse or if nothing else during the extensive Vulcan search in the late 1800's.

Each method as its +/-'s as well as cost tradeoff. I wish this new Vulcan program all the best in the hopes that they can do what others have failed to do so far.

I thought longer exposure times, sky conditions and a stable camera were key in astrophotography. If I'm wrong please correct me, but mounting a camera on an f-18 dosen't sound like good practice.

According to the SWUIS page the 60 fps rate of the camera is used for jitter compensation, so presumably the fast frame rate is quicker than the characteristic timescale of the aircraft motions.

An aside: for the larger aircraft-borne telescopes like the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) the telescope is "as stable as a mountaintop telescope sitting on a 10 meter cement foundation" according to the FAQs. From that page:

So how do you do this? First, you isolate the telescope from the airplane by mounting it on a spherical pressurized oil bearing. The plane shakes and quakes, but the telescope doesn't feel it. Second, you direct the wind away from the telescope by shaping the side of the airplane so as to deflect it, and install a little deflector fence on the edge of the telescope cavity as well. Third, you stabilize the telescope against sudden motion (wind does get through) by spinning three orthogonal gyroscopes which are rigidly attached to the structure, and fourth, you steer the telescope so as to keep it steady, by tracking a distant star and giving the telescope magnetical nudges to point it toward a fixed direction.

I thought longer exposure times, sky conditions and a stable camera were key in astrophotography. If I'm wrong please correct me, but mounting a camera on an f-18 dosen't sound like good practice.

According to the SWUIS page the 60 fps rate of the camera is used for jitter compensation, so presumably the fast frame rate is quicker than the characteristic timescale of the aircraft motions.

An aside: for the larger aircraft-borne telescopes like the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) the telescope is "as stable as a mountaintop telescope sitting on a 10 meter cement foundation" according to the FAQs. From that page:

So how do you do this? First, you isolate the telescope from the airplane by mounting it on a spherical pressurized oil bearing. The plane shakes and quakes, but the telescope doesn't feel it. Second, you direct the wind away from the telescope by shaping the side of the airplane so as to deflect it, and install a little deflector fence on the edge of the telescope cavity as well. Third, you stabilize the telescope against sudden motion (wind does get through) by spinning three orthogonal gyroscopes which are rigidly attached to the structure, and fourth, you steer the telescope so as to keep it steady, by tracking a distant star and giving the telescope magnetical nudges to point it toward a fixed direction.

When it begins to interfere with TV we start complaining. But where was the uproar when wireless networking started interfering with radio astronomy?

They also study the effect of zero-G on actual astronauts with results that can be beneficial for normal people.

>So why are there fossillized sea creatures on top of Mt. Everest?

You don't need a flood to put fossils on top of Mt. Everest. Mt. Everest formed when the Indian continental plate rammed into the Asian continental plate. That collision raised the sea-bed to the height it is now.

In fact, Mt Everest is still growing (at about 2 cm/year).

>Just from the earth's magnetic field rate of decrease alone,
>there is ample evidence for a very young (~6000 years) earth indeed.

You do know that the earth's magnetic field periodically reverses itself don't you? see http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/amag.html for more information.

>Why object to something that has hard scientific evidence like Po halos [halos.com]?

Mmm, maybe because it is *not* hard or scientific? See: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.ht ml for more information.

-- ITIHBT (I think I have been trolled).

Did it not occur to them that there are platforms on which they could test the effects of prolonged weightlessness? Or that studies have been done, including similar lab studies. Oh, well.

Did it not occur to them that there are platforms on which they could test the effects of prolonged weightlessness? Or that studies have been done, including similar lab studies. Oh, well.

Did it not occur to them that there are platforms on which they could test the effects of prolonged weightlessness? Or that studies have been done, including similar lab studies. Oh, well.

Did it not occur to them that there are platforms on which they could test the effects of prolonged weightlessness? Or that studies have been done, including similar lab studies. Oh, well.

it's olds for nerds... images from as far back as Pathfinder showed conclusive evidence of catastrophic outburst floods. That's why Mars Odyssey carries the gamma ray spectrometer which is tuned to look for the hydrogen signal from subsurface water in the first place.

it's olds for nerds... images from as far back as Pathfinder showed conclusive evidence of catastrophic outburst floods. That's why Mars Odyssey carries the gamma ray spectrometer which is tuned to look for the hydrogen signal from subsurface water in the first place.

it's olds for nerds... images from as far back as Pathfinder showed conclusive evidence of catastrophic outburst floods. That's why Mars Odyssey carries the gamma ray spectrometer which is tuned to look for the hydrogen signal from subsurface water in the first place.

It appears that there is a mistake in this article. The mile (mi) nautical mile (nmi) seem to be treated as the same distance. However, one mile is 5280 feet, and one nautical mile is 6076.1 feet by this definition, or 6080.27 feet in the definition given in GDict. This means that the estimated altitude of the rocket will be approximately 71.35 standard miles (mi) or 71.40 standard miles (mi) (respectively).

It also appears according to this NASA page that 50 miles is the altitude one has to achieve to be called an astronaut in the USA. However, the atmosphere's friction boundary is 75.76 miles, according to the same page. So the rocket will be approximately 4.41 to 4.36 miles short of the friction boundary, but any lifeforms (bacteria, etc.) that survive the journey will be astronauts in the USA.

It appears that there is a mistake in this article. The mile (mi) nautical mile (nmi) seem to be treated as the same distance. However, one mile is 5280 feet, and one nautical mile is 6076.1 feet by this definition, or 6080.27 feet in the definition given in GDict. This means that the estimated altitude of the rocket will be approximately 71.35 standard miles (mi) or 71.40 standard miles (mi) (respectively).

It also appears according to this NASA page that 50 miles is the altitude one has to achieve to be called an astronaut in the USA. However, the atmosphere's friction boundary is 75.76 miles, according to the same page. So the rocket will be approximately 4.41 to 4.36 miles short of the friction boundary, but any lifeforms (bacteria, etc.) that survive the journey will be astronauts in the USA.

Unfortunately, Gaia is not scheduled to launch until 2010. Until then, I wonder if a spacecraft like SOHO, (particularly the LASCO instrument) could look for asteroids? I've asked one of the project scientists (via email) about it. I'll post again if I find out anything good.

In the meantime, maybe one of YOU would like to search back in the archive of LASCO images and find the asteroid? You'll be famous if you find it!

Where did you get the impression that the moon is much smaller than earth?

Its diameter is 1/4 of Earth's. This is taught in elementary school I believe.

Of course, nothing beats a quick google search. Moon Fact Sheet.

CLIT and KLERCK, who were working for the NSA and NASA respectively, told me about it via email.

It wasn't announced to the general public for fear of causing instability in the Middle East.

CLIT and KLERCK, who were working for the NSA and NASA respectively, told me about it via email.

It wasn't announced to the general public for fear of causing instability in the Middle East.

1. Scientists are still assesing the odds on this, as far as what is something to freak about, and why isn't.
2. a number of the Near Ear Orbit tracking pages are properly showing distances not only in Astronomical Units, but also in Lunar distances. This is because for close earth passage the fractions get unweildy, and people freak out at terribly small numbers. That said, a million miles is roughly 4 lunar distances, the sun is somewhat under 400 lunar distances away, etc. It's a good yard stick because people can think with it.
3. odd factoid: since the moon is about 2,000 miles in diameter, this lets you estamate how big the earth would be in the sky if you were standing on the Moon. The Moon is smaller than the distance across of North America or the Nation of Brazil. Imagine an appropriately sized globe in the sky, and there you go.
4. This object did come kinda close. If you make the analogy of the average height of a human equals the size of the earth (5 to 6 feet), then the moon is roughly 200 feet away. In this scenario, the asteroid is roughly like a very high speed BB Pellet (or smaller) wizzing by at a distance of 30 ft or so.
5. Distance estimates I saw said about one sixth the distance of earth to the moon, about 40,000 miles (reports I saw in Sky and Telescope here, pretty diagram included)
6. You can query the Nasa Near Earth Object Database here
7. Veterans in Combat are much more non-chalant than civilians about the risks of small high speed objects in the space about them. Of course, they usually have the option to duck.

...you want this. 0.5 arcsecond pointing and tracking accuracy for a 2.5-meter telescope on a 747 with a sunroof.

Linking several together gives you a theoretical mirror many hundereds of miles wide.

Whilst you can do this at radio wavelengths, and have baselines (the separation between individual telescopes) the size of continents as with the VLBA, it is more difficult at optical wavelengths. This is essentially because the much shorter wavelengths make for much tighter tolerances in combining the signals. As far as I know, the current state of the art gives separations of only about 100 metres, rather than miles. See for example COAST and Optical Long Baseline Interferometry News.

Here's a beautiful photo of the VLA from Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Here's a beautiful photo of the VLA from Astronomy Picture of the Day.