Tech | February 06, 2013 | 39 comments

Earth-buzzing asteroid ‘big enough to level a city’ makes close call next week

source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0205/Earth-buzzing-asteroid-Big-enough-to-level-a-city...

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Asteroid 2012 DA14 will set a record when it zips by within 17,000 miles of Earth next week. The 150-foot object was discovered by a team of dedicated amateur astronomers in southern Spain.

By Pete Spotts, Staff writer / February 5, 2013


The solar system is sending Earth a fleeting Valentine's greeting in the form of asteroid 2012 DA14, which makes a whisker-close (cosmically speaking) approach on Feb. 15.

The rocky asteroid, which measures roughly 150 feet across, is predicted to pass within 17,000 miles of Earth's surface, slipping below the 22,236-mile altitude where major weather and communications satellites operate, but well above low-Earth orbit, where the International Space Station and the vast majority of satellites hurtle around the planet.

Its close encounter with Earth is expected to shift its orbit enough to shave 51 days off of its current 368-day orbital period.

Asteroid specialists note that the object presents no threat to either Earth or satellites, although for the record, experts currently calculate a 1 in 7.5 million chance it could strike our planet in February 2110.

Next week's fly-by represents a record – the closest that a known object of this size has buzzed the planet, according to Paul Chodas and Don Yeomans, astronomers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who study asteroids and the potential hazards they pose.

Objects in this size class come this close about once every 40 years, on average, and collide with Earth at an average rate of one every 1,200 years, they say.

Such an event wouldn't be a civilization buster, but it could put a world of hurt on a major metropolitan area, suggests Bruce Betts, director of projects for the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif.

In 1908, a similarly sized object plummeted through the atmosphere and burst above the Siberian forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, some 480 miles northeast of Krasnoyarsk. The air-burst flattened an estimated 80 million trees in a blast zone that covered 830 square miles, comparable in size to Louisville, Ky., or San Diego, Calif.

"This would have leveled a city," says Dr. Betts.

Since astronomers began efforts dedicated to the search for near-Earth objects around 1995, some 9,668 have been discovered. Of those, 861 are more than half a mile wide, while 1,373 are considered potentially hazardous.

By some estimates, the number of asteroids in the 20-meter (65.6 feet) to 200-meter (656 feet) size range could reach as high as 500,000.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 was discovered last year by a team of dedicated amateur astronomers operating a small observatory in the mountains of southern Spain. The effort highlights the role more-sophisticated amateurs can play in hunting for near-Earth objects, especially those that pose a threat to Earth.

Using a high-speed camera bolted to the back of an 18-inch telescope, the team, led by Jaime Nomen, a Barcelona dental surgeon, first detected the asteroid last February. The group is hunting for the smaller objects that are so faint that they don't appear until perhaps a week before closest approach.

"These small objects can appear at any moment," says Dr. Nomen, who notes that he has cut his once full-time dental practice down to two days a week to allow for more observing and more-rapid processing of the images the telescope takes.

Indeed, he and his team discovered another object much like 2012 DA14 on Feb. 4 and are awaiting confirmation of the siting from other observatories, he said in a briefing with reporters on Tuesday. Initial calculations of the object's orbit suggest it won't pass as close to Earth as 2012 DA14. Two days ago, calculations suggested that the object, estimated at 100 to 130 feet across, would make its closest approach to Earth some 72,000 miles beyond the moon.

Moonlit nights and bouts of cloudy weather slow the pace of discovery of objects in this size range.

"There are a lot of reasons [why] it's possible still to discover many of those objects, even working with small devices as we have," he says.

The team, which runs the La Sagra Observatory and its three 18-inch telecopes, were able to add the high-speed camera to one of them thanks to a grant from the Planetary Society in a program aimed at upgrading the hardware that hard-core amateur astronomers use to hunt for near-Earth objects.

While professional observatories dedicated to such searches bag the highest number of asteroids, perhaps as many as 100 amateurs worldwide conduct the follow-up observations needed to refine calculations of an object's orbit, figure out if an asteroid has a companion, and provide some initial characterizations of the type of asteroid the professionals discover, Betts says.
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39 comments // Earth-buzzing asteroid ‘big enough to level a city’ makes close call next week

  • Milieu
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
  • IceKat
  • coolplanet
    • 0
      coolplanet  
    • IceKat:

      Well if one of these space boulders struck Earth it would certainly be climate change. And our fossil fuel economy is certainly the equivalent of an asteroid strike.
      So yes.

    • 3 months ago
  • Joeydee44
  • coolplanet
  • youngdebater
  • Paratus
  • lightningthunderfox
    • +1
      lightningthunderfox  

    • "In 1908, a similarly sized object plummeted through the atmosphere and burst above the Siberian forest near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, some 480 miles northeast of Krasnoyarsk. The air-burst flattened an estimated 80 million trees in a blast zone that covered 830 square miles, comparable in size to Louisville, Ky., or San Diego, Calif."

      Tesla said he did that.

    • 3 months ago
  • coolplanet
    • 0
      coolplanet  
    • lightningthunderfox:

      I never knew that Tesla took credit for that.
      But I can see how his Colorado Springs experiments could have caused it.
      Harnessing lightning and broadcasting billions of volts on the ionosphere around the world like FM radio is dangerous!
      It should be illegal.

    • 3 months ago
  • bailey78
  • sedwin
  • coolplanet
  • attilatheblond
  • coolplanet
  • oldbanjo
  • attilatheblond
  • attilatheblond
  • coolplanet
  • attilatheblond
  • oldbanjo
  • lightningthunderfox
  • attilatheblond
    • +3
      attilatheblond  

    • Glad to see more and more 'amateur' astronomers adding their eyes to the search for objects heading our way. Back in the early 90s, I watched a PBS program on the efforts and it was said the number of people engaged in the work full full time was less than the number of people on staff at the average McDonalds. More eyes needed for sure, it's a big sky.

      Some cities have active and vital astronomy clubs which do much to watch skies and encourage education, interest. One of the criteria for us in our search for a retirement location is whether potential locations have such a group functioning.

      Looking far is healthy.

    • 3 months ago
  • coolplanet
  • attilatheblond
    • +3
      attilatheblond  
    • coolplanet:

      Yep, lead time is the only chance we would have, lots of lead time. And I just saw they are trying to find a new use for one of the Kitt Peak scopes (don't recall what type of scope it is) or it will be decommissioned due to.... budget considerations.

      Hope schools are lucky enough to hire teachers who inspire kids in science, cuz without lots of knowledgeable people, we might be in trouble.

    • 3 months ago
  • coolplanet
  • attilatheblond
  • oldbanjo
  • attilatheblond
  • oldbanjo
  • coolplanet
    • +2
      coolplanet  

    • "Objects in this size class come this close about once every 40 years, on average, and collide with Earth at an average rate of one every 1,200 years, they say."

      It's a little disturbing that it took an amateur astronomer to detect this huge threat just last year.

    • 3 months ago
  • bailey78
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • 0
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • coolplanet:

      Comet Elenin was spotted also by an amateur astronomer who later remarked his poor telescope by all rights he should not have been the one to see it first. -December 10, 2010

      This asteroid is coming by us at slow throttle so Earth Gravity has longer to pull on it. But of course these experts must've factored all that into their expert calculations SO NOT TO WORRY MATES!

      We earthlings have 8 days remaining to live. The trick to survival is to stick close to Rush Limbaugh or Mark R. Levin, or a Sean Hannity. When you spy one of em running to the airport for an unscheduled flight it's time to go deep under-da-ground.

    • 3 months ago
  • coolplanet
  • YourTaxes_MyPaycheck
    • -1
      YourTaxes_MyPaycheck  
    • coolplanet:

      Yes. I AM STILL ALIVE!!!! I was hit direct blow by a flying alien ship called POISON PIZZA. It must've had e. Coli, Salmonella, kitchen sink, a mosquito Special. Shigella followed by Sepsis, couldn't move for a few days so weak I couldn't even crawl.

      I finally got to the telephone had eneough energy to MAKE ONE PHONE CALL. So I called my son and he wasn't home.

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

      Seriously I wasn't able to post any more because after several weeks I felt like I wasn't "coming back". It was the evening of my life. So I cancelled my G_M account thinking I needed to go buy some BURIAL INSURANCE. But I had to take my new tonic oil mix twice, very heavy dosages both times just 2 days apart. That started me back.

      But I got an affliction called elephantiasis in my legs and feet. The tonic chased it out of my leg but the feet are growing with additional "rod-shaped" bacteria. My feet are actually Stronger stuffed with them fellers but, sort of weird too they look like Hulk's feet now. Shoes barely fit.

      I'm sorta thinking if I can get those suckers to stuff my chest I might GET SOME DATES no long being David Banner. Be Big Lou Ferrigno, Arnold chest and so on!!!

      Unfortunately I have a really BAD feeling about this big asteroid sauntering by begging Earth's Gravity to rope it on down. A big word to the wise. If your power fluctuates to a lower AC current add more cooking time to frozen pizzas. They're Killer.

    • 3 months ago
  • coolplanet
    • +2
      coolplanet  

    • "...predicted to pass within 17,000 miles of Earth's surface, slipping below the 22,236-mile altitude where major weather and communications satellites operate..."

      Now THAT is a close call!

    • 3 months ago
  • oldbanjo
  • coolplanet
  • oldbanjo
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