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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.
``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!
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.
Don't worry, in case of any problem, Bruce Willis is still there .. :)
Bruce isn't that desperate, is he?
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.
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.