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Asteroid Fly-By on August 18
ke4roh writes "An asteroid will fly near the planet and be visible with binoculars from the northern hemisphere August 18, so says this article. Astronomers say it will cross the sky at 8 degrees per hour and fade out of view as it approaches the sun and hence goes through its various phases - full, gibbous, half... down to nothing. Such a show only comes about twice a century, so take a look before it disappears!"
Another reader sends in a few useful links: "Here's the complete
article
from the folks at
NASA Space Science with extra links including details on the astreroid's
trajectory."
.. I am sure NASA has an oil drilling team on stand by as we read this.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
pair of decent binoculars: $60
tank of gas to drive to dark location: $20
Lawn blankets: $15
The expression on your face as you realise some NASA mathmatican forgot to carry a one......priceless
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
The Leonid meteor shower was a great way for me to introduce my 6 and 3 yr old to astronomy. It was a night I will remember forever, as they will too hopefully. They still talk about the "stars falling from the sky".
My kids are actually really excited about this event. There is nothing betting then getting kids into science then direct experience.
``Whoa, dude, that's rock's shaped really weird...''
``Yeah... looks like a dog bone or somethin'...''
*toke* *toke*
``Heh heh... check out Uranus...''
No, probably not.
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
Stellarium is an impressive piece of free software for Linux and Windoze that renders the sky at any given time given your coordinates.
I bet it will make it much easier for the untrained people to find the asteroid in the sky (considering its trayectory.
We can be quite sure that is *not* made out of:
- Gouda cheese
- recycled AOL CD's
- Rubber
- Cookie dough
....
Maybe that'll help them to narrow the options down1. Wait for another asteroid story on /. (approx 5 minutes).
2. Post bruce willis / liv tyler joke (approx 21 seconds).
3. Sit back and watch the karma roll in (unknown).
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
NASA's plan:
1. Report doomsday asteroid heading for earth
2. ???
3. Profit!
Hard work usually pays off over time, but procrastination pays off now.
It will be visible on August 18th (8/18), move 8 degrees an hour, and have a brightness peak of 8th magnitude?
The astrologists and numerologists are gonna have a field day with this one. Time to get into the fortune business, being that programming is in the dumps.
If the damned thing is also shaped like an "8", then we are never gonna hear the end of it.
Table-ized A.I.
Anyone here remember comet Hykataki (sorry bad spelling)? Now that was an impressive show! Not only could you see it perfectly with the naked eye, but through field goggles or a small telescope it was truly a grand vision! The only drawback to having seen that is that everything else is kind of a let down... =:::(
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Don't worry, in case of any problem, Bruce Willis is still there .. :)
Bruce isn't that desperate, is he?
8 degrees / hour? is that even fast enough to notice movement with the naked eye?
No, it sure isn't. Of course, seeing as the object will peak at eighth magnitude, it'll be 16 times dimmer than the dimmest thing that most people can see with the naked eye anyway, so no one will really care.
A more interesting question is "will you be able to notice the movement in your telescope?" I happen to have a 4.5" Newtonian that I track stuff with in my backyard. Most of the stuff I track rotates 360 degrees in the sky in 24 hours. (And whatever anyone tells you about the Earth rotating - lies! It's the Celestial Sphere!) So that'd be... 15 degrees per hour.
Is this noticable? You bet. A star will fly out of my field of view in around three minutes. So 8 degrees per hour means I'll have to adjust my telescope's pointing at least every six minutes. That's TEN TIMES every hour.
Annoying, no?
Alf
In Soviet Russia, sig types you!
Strange how the articles "every 50 years or so," seems a lot mroe frequent then the "twice a century" the summary stated.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Actually, asteroids pass even closer to the Earth every year; most of them are just smaller than 800 meters. In many cases, we don't detect the objects until after they've gone past.
Here's a list of objects which have come closer to the Earth than 2002 NY40 in the past decade or so. The final column shows the closest approach in terms of the Lunar Distance (between Earth and Moon). For 2002 NY40, that's about 1.3.
You can generate such lists yourself at The NEO Program's list of Near Earth Objects.
Michael Richmond "This is the heart that broke my finger."
mwrsps@rit.edu http://stupendous.rit.edu
I notice that the article doesn't say anything about whether the asteroid will show an apparent disc from Earth, but this is easy enough to calculate, I suppose--
.0000016 radians approx .000092 degrees approx .33 seconds of arc.
Diameter of asteroid: 800 m
Perigee distance: "1.3 x distance of Moon"
Distance of moon: 384,000,000 m approx.
Thus, perigee distance: 500,000,000 m approx.
Angle subtended by asteroid: 800 / 500,000,000
=
=
=
And this is only at perigee, of course.
By comparison, the disc of Neptune subtends about 3 seconds of arc (don't remember exactly), and just shows a disc in larger amateur telescopes. I don't think anyone with a pair of binoculars is going to be able to discern phases on this asteroid.
hyacinthus.
You just want us all to run a trojanned Makefile that gives you a remote prompt, don't you. We're on to your games.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Asteroids zip by the earth fairly often. You can see the closest ones in the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) section of the spaceweather.com page.
What is unusual about this one is that it will be 8th magnitude, which will be easily visible in binoculars or a telescope even in a slightly or moderately light-polluted area. Most of the asteroids that zip by are 12th-14th magnitude and therefore only visible in moderate to large aperture telescopes with dark skies.
What's annoying is having a Celestron with an automatic tracker, but for some reason freaks out when you try to get it to do an auto-seek or an alignment. And a customer service department that seems to be perpetually out golfing or something. (I've never gotten a live rep on the phone).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Star chart software in generally is pretty cool, but even someone who can only find the big dipper should be able to find this asteroid given the small map at the "trayjectory" link you provided. All you need to be able to find are Vega and Deneb. Vega will be the brightest star in the sky, and it will be pretty much staight up for most of the Northern Hemisphere at around midnight. Deneb will be the bright star just a short ways off to the north and east of Vega. There will be a 3rd bright star further south and a little farther off, called the eye of the eagle. These 3 bright stars make up the Summer Triangle that region of the night sky. You can't miss it, really. If you just look up and turn around in a circle, the 3 things that will stand out will be the big dipper, the summer triangle, and a bright orange star in the east called Arcturus.
If you are not in to astronomy a little bit though, seeing the asteroid may well be anticlimactic for you. It will just be a faint star that moves against the backround.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Which planet?
What planet do you live on?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
No, but rapid phasing will be discernable as a rapid drop in brightness, equivalent to apparent albedo drop -- much faster and less linear than increasing distance would account for. (Good point that we shouldn't expect to see the phasing, though. Nice to see back of the envelope reasonableness checks!)
Sigs? We don't need no stinkin Sigs.
Looking at the future table, we might get out the binoculars to see these rocks on the given days:
But there aren't all that many rocks that we know about on the way here.Twice a century? Perhaps a little more often - and if we get more funding for watching for the Big One, we'll likely find out about substantially more rocks coming close, so if you miss this one, there's a fair chance you'll catch the next show.
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER