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Closest Ever Asteroid Passage Revealed

Posted by michael on from the horseshoes-and-hand-grenades dept.

tricaric writes "Another asteroid passed, last March 31st, close to the Earth. This time it was only about 2 Earth radii from the Earth. The observation have been published only a few days ago, because 'Although the observed arc is only 44 minutes, the orbit is quite determinate and, given the exceptional nature of this close approach, the object is now receiving a designation.' Check out the ORSA animation!"

4 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading Headline by barakn · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "Closest Ever Asteroid Passage Revealed?"

    check out the 1972 daylight fireball. It came so close it actually skipped off the atmosphere. There are plenty of other close encounters in the literature that came well before this.

    --
    "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
  2. Re:It was tiny... by OneOver137 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, but it would've made many satellite operators nervous to not have a good orbit determination. A collision in geo makes a mess and takes away much of that real estate for quite some time. Orbital traffic management for both known and 'alien' bodies such as this asteroid is a growing concern among those in the space operations business.

  3. Maybe it would have been good if it did hit us by kippy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Consider what might happen if this particular rock did hit us. 6 meters isn't enough to wipe out a city and it's unlikely that it would have hit in a populated area. Assuming that it didn't kill or hurt anyone, it might have been a good thing if it hit the ground.

    Why? Because a big, fat, headline making impact (or splash) would really catch everyone's attention. A miss just catches our (the nreds') interest for a bit. If people perceive that there is an actual threat, perhaps space exploration and planetary defense will be taken seriously for a change.

    --
    Blaze a trail to the New World
  4. That's no moon! by BoogieChile · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's a bloody rock, is what that is.

    If you want to call that an asteroid, then this is also an asteroid? This was a meteor that passed right through Earth's atmosphere in 1976, with a perehelion of 58,000 metres.

    Although, I think the point here is that this is the closest observed astronomically. It's like seeing the meteor before it hits the atmosphere, I guess. Anyway, the astronomers are all in a tizzy over it, so that must be a good thing.