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Asteroid Fly-By Caught On Tape

Posted by timothy on from the like-paris-hilton dept.

starexplorer writes "SPACE.com is reporting that the Asteroid Toutatis flew over the neighborhood early this morning. The Asteroid is 2.9 miles long and 1.5 miles wide and was caught on video (Animated GIF here) by a team of educators. NASA also has a video capture." (This is the same asteroid recently promised.)

7 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Well That's One of Many by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Check the 'most complete map of the solar system' at http://szyzyg.arm.ac.uk/~spm/

    1. Re:Well That's One of Many by szyzyg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ahhh yes.... from the days before I was snatched away by the promise of internet companies. It's been over 5 years since I created that page and it keeps getting rediscovered. I need to update some of my astroid animations how that I can do video editing with something more powerful than shell scripts ;-)

      People should also check out the local map for today, showing Toutatis right next to the planet.

  2. Video?? Liars! by escher · · Score: 3, Informative

    The nasa "video" is just a CG animation of the asteroid's rotation.

  3. Video Capture by finkployd · · Score: 2, Informative

    If by "video capture" you mean "CG artist's rendering of said asteroid", then this is correct.

    Finkployd

  4. was I the only one... by nusratt · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... to skim the title and briefly wonder, "What's an asteroid fly?"

  5. Some video! by fm6 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where's the cool/ominious whooshing sound that all asteroids make???!!!

  6. Alternative for animation if /.ed.. by adeyadey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Here is an ascii representation of the encounter..
    (Just scroll down & blink quickly)

    .
    o
    o
    O
    O - closest encounter
    O
    o
    o
    .

    --
    "You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"