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A Rock Moves In Space

Posted by timothy on from the don't-justify-any-orgies-just-yet dept.

theBrownfury writes: "The BBC is reporting here that a very large Earth collision course asteroid has been discovered. This asteroid, NT7, was first observed on July 5th and current data suggests an impact date of February 1st, 2019. NT7 is 2kms wide and on date of impact will be approaching Earth at 28km/s. An asteroid of this size is large enough to cause continent wide destruction. However astronomers are still cautious in reporting this asteroid as the orbit of NT7 has not been fully verified. Current data on NT7's orbit suggests it orbits the Sun every 837 days and travels in a tilted orbit from about the distance of Mars to just within the Earth's orbit." The BBC article's headline (and accompanying illustration) are more alarming than the story itself seems to warrant: this asteroid has been given a 0.06 on the Palermo technical scale, which means it shouldn't bump getting run over by a llama off your list of worries.

5 of 828 comments (clear)

  1. See it happen! by crt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Check out the 3d view here.

    Just fast-forward to Feb-1 2019, set the center on earth, and zoom in.

  2. Pull it into Earth orbit and... by eyepeepackets · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1. mine it for data;

    2. use it as a platform for whatever;

    3. sell pieces of it to whomever;

    4. mine it for whatever minerals it may carry;

    5. ...and, well, you get the point. If it's coming close enough, let's turn it in to something useful.

    --
    Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
  3. Palermo scale by SiliconEntity · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The Palermo scale, on which this object has a value of 0.06, is described at JPL. According to the accompanying paper, it is intended for the use of professional astronomers and is not intended for communicating risks to the general public. A different scale, the Torino scale, which has integer values from 0 to 10, is intended for that purpose. This object is probably a Torino 2.

    A Palermo value of 0.06 means that the risk from this object is elevated above the background risk for such objects by about 15%. (The 0.06 is the log of the ratio of the risk to the background risk.) So however worried you were yesterday about collisions with 2 km asteroids, you can be 15% more worried today.

    In short, not worth losing sleep over.

  4. Recent close approaches by Alien54 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    this is pretty good:

    http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/neo/close.html

    give distances both in AU and LD (lunar distances) for the dozen or so close passes that happen each month or so.

    Not that you should be alarmed.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  5. About that Graphic by DoorFrame · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't worry about the alarmist graphic. You'll note that they BBC online site uses that "giant asteroid destroying the Earth" image every second on third asteroid story they run. Here's a few recent favorites with the scary image:

    Asteroid Impact Centre Site Selected
    Earth at Lower Risk of Impact
    UK Centre to Study Asteroid Threat

    So, yeah, basically you should ignore that image. It's not related to the story in any but the most basic level; it's a picture of an asteroid hitting the Earth... a stock one.

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    RumorsDaily