Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Astronomers Catch Asteroid In Near-Miss Video

Posted by samzenpus on from the skin-of-your-teeth dept.

ananyo writes in with a story about an asteroid near miss and a neat video taken by researchers. "It may look like a blurry blob, but researchers using the InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF) in Hawaii have posted a video of 2012 KT42 — a small asteroid that zipped past Earth at a distance of just three Earth radii on 29 May — the sixth closest encounter of any known asteroid. The bright asteroid appears fixed, while background stars zip past but in fact the asteroid is zipping along at 17 kilometres per second. 'You get the view of riding along with it,' says planetary scientist Richard Binzel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who led the observations. At its closest, the asteroid was at a distance between the orbit of the space station (about 1 Earth radii) and geosynchronous satellites (about 6 Earth radii)."

8 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Space station altitude.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Space station altitude is no where near 1 earth radius!!

    1. Re:Space station altitude.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ahem... if you're at ground level, your own altitude is 1 earth radius.

  2. 1 Earth radii by TheCreeep · · Score: 5, Informative

    Radius is the single, radii is the plural. When it's only one, we use the singular.
    1 kilometer, 1 liter, 1 metric fuckton. Or as people use across the pond, 1 miles, 1 gallon, 1 imperial fuckton.

    You don't say 1 kilometers, 1 liters and you don't say 1 radii either.
    Hence, it's 1 radius.

    1. Re:1 Earth radii by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      s/miles/mile

      s/miles/:)
      (looks cute)

  3. Downloadable video by k(wi)r(kipedia) · · Score: 5, Informative
    I can't view anything in my Flash-free browser. After some searching I found what looks like a downloadable video of the asteroid flyby (56 MB). From the caption:

    The sixth closest asteroid encounter on record, the May 29 near-miss by the object catalogued as "2012 KT42", was tracked by the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii as it whizzed inside the orbital distance of Earth geosynchronous satellites (6.6 Earth radii or an altitude of 22,000 miles).

  4. Near Miss by erktrek · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here's a phrase that apparently the airlines simply made up: near miss. They say that if 2 planes almost collide, it's a near miss. Bullshit, my friend. It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss.
    [WHAM! CRUNCH!]
    "Look, they nearly missed!"
    "Yes, but not quite.”

    George Carlin

  5. Re:Near miss? Near hit, rather.... by CompComp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The asteroid missed. It didn't miss by by a large amount- it came near. It was a near miss. It didn't hit, so it wasn't a "near hit" or a "far hit".

  6. At ground level your altitude is zero. by Herve5 · · Score: 5, Informative

    And the space station is some *20 times* closer to Earth than an earth radius. I must say I stopped reading here too.

    --
    Herve S.