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Newly Discovered Asteroid To Pass Within Geostationary Orbit Sunday
theshowmecanuck writes: A newly found asteroid the size of a house will give earth a close flyby this weekend. It will pass just below satellites in geostationary orbit, and above New Zealand around 14:18 EDT / 18:18 GMT / 06:18 NZST this coming Sunday (Monday morning in NZ). "Asteroid 2014 RC was initially discovered on the night of August 31 by the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, and independently detected the next night by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, located on the summit of Haleakal on Maui, Hawaii," NASA officials said in a statement.
Not the 34,000 km above earth part, but the "we discovered it a week ago" part.
if its going to be that close :)
BTW how big its it? The size of a house can vary a lot, and are we talking spuare feet, length, or mass
NZ houses aren't as big in area as american houses, and mostly made of wood, so they are not as heavy eithere.
Will it be visible by the naked eye?
What I find cool about this asteroid is that it's in a 1.5 year orbit. That means it's in a 3:2 resonance with Earth. So it'll come by again if you miss it this time, every 3 years.
Normally you'd expect asteroids that makes this close an approach to Earth to have a bit of a change in orbital parameters after the flyby, but that 3:2 orbital ratio is unlikely to be a coincidence-- it looks like a resonant orbit, in which the Earth's gravitational perturbation has already modified the orbit until it reached that stable resonance.
The small-body page allows you to propagate the orbit into the future, if you're interested. (Not a good tool to use if you're calculating missions, though-- you'll want a more accurate simulator! The V_infinity is a bit large for a rendezvous, though.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.c...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Nuff said
All other source I've seen mention 0.0002664... AU or approx. 40'000 km. That would be above geosynchronous orbit altitude, not below.
For example, from JPL:
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.c...
Geostationary Orbit Sunday
I've only just recovered from Near Equatorial Tuesday!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
"It will pass just below satellites in geostationary orbit, and above New Zealand "
Geostationary orbit is around the equator, NZ is 40 to 45 degrees south or so.
sending us all these celestial resources!
For "really close"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
We should be able to aerobrake that spacerock and parachute it down to KSC to add it to our collection!
Geostationary orbit is A COMPLETELY ARBITRARY THING
From the second sentence in the summary: "It will pass just below satellites in geostationary orbit,"
All our hopes and dreams revolving around deflecting asteroids and comets all hinge on being able to detect them far enough out to make an intercept. Makes me think we should really reconsider the priority we put on manned space missions, particularly generational missions. Otherwise we stand a good chance of getting snuffed out as a species if we hang around here long enough. Asteroids and comets are not even the most dangerous threats we face.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Hardly arbitrary, when Earth is your specified frame of reference. I choose to remember it as 22,222 miles because it's easy to remember. It's only when I'm actually designing my satellites that I do the calculation. Otherwise my arbitrary satellite will fall out of the sky. Now you may say my decision to use miles instead of meters is arbitrary as well, but it wasn't. The part that always trips me up is spelling satellite. That's where google comes in. Heard of it?
it would still be decelerated to a safe velocity before hit hit the gorund and would just bounce.
Bounce?? This was calculated using Kermit's space program?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Do you even understand what the point of geostationary orbit is?
The distance involved is anything but arbitrary.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
No, not arbitrary. Very definite.
I'm sorry, you're a moron. Sure it's arbitrary, since two orbital parameters are free and the term geostationary refers to an infinite set of orbits. Yet everyone understands that it's about the radius. Perhaps the title should have said "within the geostationary orbital radius".
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Well thank goodness... I'd be a bit concerned if it was going to be BELOW New Zealand...
Is it actually a 3:2 resonance? You need more than just a ratio of the orbital periods, something like precession of the perhelions to match for an actual resonance. Otherwise it is just a coincidence, of which there are a lot of in the solar system, where the orbits will drift apart and over a period of more than an orbit or two look random instead of actually dynamically linked in a resonance.
"It works in KSP!"
typo in summary
Infinite set? I thought that 'geostationary orbit' meant an orbit only at a specific distance, only around the equator. What am I missing? What other orbits would be geostationary?
Even then that's an infinite set, since one orbital parameter (a.k.a. the orbital slot) is free. An orbit isn't a path in the sky, it's a vector in the space of orbital parameters. You can't ignore the orbital spot and pretend that all geostationary orbits are the same - all those satellites would sit on each other, then :)
I did generalize it, assuming that any orbit with a 24h period is geostationary. Perhaps that was ill advised :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Not arbitrary... Approximately 35,786 km (22,236 mi) above mean sea level. The distance at which an orbit takes a day. About 1/10th the distance to the moon. About 3x the diameter of earth. Arbitrary = based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
Just like the rovers on Mars do!..
Yes, there is a significant difference between geostationary and geosynchronous orbits.
I did generalize it, assuming that any orbit with a 24h period is geostationary. Perhaps that was ill advised :)
Heh. Especially if you're going the wrong way.
... and keep those sheep quiet - no bleating to change any resonant properties of anything during the flyby ;-)
Yeah, after all, what is gravity well free access to effectively infinite mineral and other resources? What's the use of long baseline telescopes (of any wavelength) without atmospheric interference? What's the use of 0-G manufacturing? What's the use of 100% availability of solar power? What's the use of heavy manufacturing where pollution is trivially and harmlessly disposable by simply pushing it into (towards) the sun? What's the use of cutting the cost of space travel to other solar locations by removing the whole "climb out of the gravity well every time" "feature"? What's the use of exploring new worlds in a much easier fashion? What's the use of setting up any size nuclear power stations with zero risk to anyone on the planet? What's the point of having almost direct access to any incoming comet or asteroid without having to climb a 1G gravity well first? Actually, what's the point of exploring at all? What's the use of listening for other civilizations without earthly interference, without inherent limitations on size, and power, and wavelength? What's the use of being able to immediately test new space-drive ideas... in space? What's the advantage of having hard vacuum available instead of having to pump for hours at a high energy cost, where said energy and time is anything but free? From the military POV, what's the use of trading multi-million dollar warheads for free rocks?
I mean, jeeze... such a useless idea, creating space habitats, spending whatever for no tangible results whatsoever. The NERVE! You are so right.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
to answer GP (who I assume is an AC): geostationary is by no means arbitrary.
A geostationary orbit is one in which the orbiting body does not move relative to a point on the surface of its parent (in the context case, specifically Earth). This requires a specific orbital distance (22,236 miles*) at a specific inclination (0 to the equator), to maintain a sidereal orbital period of 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds (approximately). which is equal to the sidereal rotation period of Earth - how about that? In a two-body problem this would be simple, but we have this thing called the Moon, and this thing called the Sun, and to a lesser extent every other body with mass in the Universe, to deal with in maintaining a geostationary orbit. NBody physics introduces a certain degree of chaos to orbital predictions.
*this number is known by calculation using: cube root mu over omega squared. Refer to the Wikipedia.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
yes, that's a very bad assumption to make, since you can achieve a geosynchronous orbit with a periapse of 120 miles.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Both this article and the one it references refer to this asteroid as passing within geostationary orbit but the NASA article and accompanying diagram both show it passing outside of geostationary orbit.
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/asteroid/small-asteroid-to-safely-pass-close-to-earth-sunday/#.VAuKNUtMLRo
Sorry, I had a brain fart :/
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.