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Russian Meteor Likely an Apollo Asteroid Chunk
astroengine writes "Helped by the extensive coverage of eyewitness cameras, CCTV footage and a fortuitous observation made by the Meteosat-9 weather satellite, Jorge Zuluaga and Ignacio Ferrin of the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia, have been able to reconstruct the most likely orbit of the meteoroid that slammed into the atmosphere over the Russian Urals region on Feb. 15. What's more, they know what type of space rock it was — the Chelyabinsk-bound meteoroid originated from an Apollo-class asteroid (PDF). Apollo asteroids are well-known near-Earth asteroids that cross the orbit of Earth. Around 5,200 Apollo asteroids are currently known, the largest being 1866 Sisyphus — a 10 kilometer-wide monster that was discovered in 1972."
Nice flying, Apollo.
- Starbuck
So it wasn't a Gu'ald attack?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_asteroids
10k wide? And we don't have Bruce Willis on stand by at ALL TIMES!?!?!?
Waiting for an amusing sig.
I know Jorge! That work is quite amazing. They are working based on shadows. They measure the shadows of lampposts changing in small fractions of time, their size and angle, and do the same from very different places in Russia. The result is amazing!
What I read: "Russian Meteor Likely an Apollo Astronaut Chunk"
John C Dvorak on TWiT the other day, commented that it wasn't a meteorite at all, but a missile that had been shot down or the result of asteroid mining that had gone awry. He cited two crashes in the U.S. and Cuba that same day and claimed that the video and photos of the impact area showed just a perfect ice hole and no effects on the water or the immediate area. But Dvorak also said that the L.A. cop Chris Dorner's manhunt and death were fake too. And he does something called "No Agenda" which seems to be a conspiracy podcast.
"the largest being 1866 Sisyphus — a 10 kilometer-wide monster that was discovered in..."
WAIT! I KNOW THIS ONE! Is it 1866?
"...1972."
oh. okay :(
you will love the new Train song Chunks of Apollo
What's that fallin from the atmosphere
Ther's chunks of Apollo up in here, hey, hey
It acts like a meteor and fall like rain
See um runnin for cover on the Siberian plains, hey, hey
Since the return from the trip round moon
It streaks through the air with a sonic boom, hey, hey
Tell me did you burn hotter than sun
Did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded
And that collision detectors are overrated
Tell me, did you shoot like a falling star
And leave a permanent scar
And did you give some Russian folks a scare
Something's wrong when a 10 KILOMETER wide astroid has 'sisy' in its name, just sayin'.
These guys are smoking dope, don't believe a word they say
Is that supposed to be funny or just plain ignorant?
1. The name of the country is Colombia, not Columbia.
2. Colombia isn't a big marijuana producer or consumer. Paraguay and Mexico are the big producers, and the biggest consumers (by population percentage) in America are the US and Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_cannabis_use_by_country
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/06/daily-chart-16
Well, starting by the fact that the country is Colombia, and not "Columbia", i will infer that your level of education is below the national average of your country.
Besides that, i found the paper quite interesting.
the biggest consumers (by population percentage) in America are the US and Canada
Don't listen to him, he's smokin dope.
Even if it was the whole command module (minus the conical part they detach for re-entry) it still wouldnt be big enough tomake that explosion
So...it keeps trying to hit us, but always misses and is flung back into space?
There are only 2 types of Earth crossing asteroids: Apollos with a semi major axis larger than 1AU and perihelion smaller than Earth's aphelion and Atens with a semi major axis smaller than 1AU and aphelion larger than Earth's perihelion. There are 4803 known Apollo asteroids (I don't know where the 5200 number in the summary comes from but IAU's Minor Planet Center knows of only 4803) and 747 known Atens, so there was a very good chance that the meteorite was an Apollo...
Yay, what a surprise: "likely an Apollo"...[sarcasm] gosh, that is unexpected! [/sarcasm]
Given that the vast majority of objects in earth-crossing orbits are Apollos, that is hardly a surprising conclusion. It would have been much more interesting if it was an Aten - much less of those around. Or a comet fragment
87% of asteroids in earth-crossing orbits are Apollos. 13% are Atens. Then there is a n unknown quantity of cometary objects
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem delendam esse
Make that 4,199.
the meteorite was not from space but part of a U.S. weapons test
They need better intel. Everyone in the US knows our military industrial complex isn't about working weapons...it's about milking tax dollars in going far beyond budgets to improve SEC filings. Can anyone in the US name 5 successful weapons programs to go into production over the last 10 years without major problems?
DId one of the Apollo astronauts have trouble with weightlessness? Perhaps a bad breakfast that morning?
I'm guessing math is not your strong suit.
it gives me a sad that we've forgotten John McAfee so quickly after all the hours of amusement he provided.
So Earth hasn't cleared its orbit?
The article is wrong, and overstates the risks.
It, in a fit of alarmism, claims that there are 5,200 of these.
In fact, there are only 5,199 now . . .
hawk
The asteroid was obviouisly from Klendathu, lets go kill some bugs!
Become a citizen and JOIN the Federal Service!
#Would you like to know more?#
It was obviously Xur firing his 'meteor gun' from the Kodan command ship on the other side of the frontier!
So, if there 80 million of these Apollo Asteroids, and 500 known, there's 160,000 unknown asteroids for every known one. I'd presume that there's recording of prior observations of the Apollo Asteroids, and it would be interesting to discover whether this asteroid has been observed in the past. We hear all this publicity about near-hits (near-miss is a term that makes no sense) that have been tracked, but this was a hit that wasn't tracked. This high ratio of unknown Apollo asteroids suggests that reliably tracking asteroids to determine which will hit is a tough problem.
Unless hits can be tracked with high probability, coming up with ways to adjust the orbits of planet-killing hits is not worth worrying about. We won't need to send in the drilling team if we can't see them coming. Michio Kaku went to the trouble of telling us that if the orbit was a few seconds different, it could have been a big catastrophe, but how is that relevant if we can't track them?