Simulation of Close Asteroid Fly-By 148
c0mpliant writes "NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have released a simulation of the path of an asteroid, named Apophis, that will come very close to Earth in 2029 — the closest predicted approach since humans have monitored for such heavenly bodies. The asteroid caused a bit of a scare when astronomers first announced that it would enter Earth's neighborhood some time in the future. However, since that announcement in 2004, more recent calculations have put the odds of collision at 1 in 250,000."
relative risk (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Boorrinng (Score:3, Informative)
Your vish is my command:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zvCUmeoHpw [youtube.com]
A dose of realism, before the plague of ignorance (Score:3, Informative)
I wish that someone would make a game of this... where you need to send up a vehicle, bump and asteroid and watch the change. Give us all a chance to crowd source the various "solutions". Learn just how friggin tricky this would be, how long it would take, how little effect we can have. All of this talk about "capturing this asteroid" on this thread alone is sad. The amount of energy in an asteroid's kinetics is astounding. This topic needs a dose of realism.
A POX on Bruce Wyllis!
Re:Looks like our force field will save us (Score:4, Informative)
That is the same as the relative positions of this simulation.
Re:Impact the moon? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cue 13-yr-old Corrects NASA, again. (Score:3, Informative)
No, it doesn't [nasa.gov]
However, the asteroid will not pass near the main belt of geosynchronous satellites in 2029, and the chance of a collision with a satellite is exceedingly remote.
Re:Impact Simulations (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Looks like our force field will save us (Score:3, Informative)
no, the asteroid is moving in a near ellipsoid perturbed by earths gravity.
Re:In case of slashdotting (Score:3, Informative)
There is still some uncertainty in the calculations due to imperfect observations, the effects of gravity, and the solar wind, for example. The trajectory shown in the video is very close to the most likely one, but there are still some factors that could change from the expected parameters and so change the actual path.
Re:A dose of realism, before the plague of ignoran (Score:3, Informative)
Additional computing power isn't really needed for this problem. JPL already has the Standard Dynamic Model they use to model all bodies in the solar system accurately, and the current hardware is perfectly capable of handling the problem.
What is needed to refine and understand the trajectory is more observations. Radar range and range-rate measurements, along with optical angle measurements are fed together to estimate the current position and velocity, and using estimation techniques you can estimate your uncertainty as well. In order to bring down the uncertainty, we need more measurements that give a better statistical sample and allow you to have more confidence in your averages. Sadly most people don't have radio telescopes are large enough optical telescopes (20"+ preferably) to really make a good observation. For that reason, it will probably take till 2013, the next close approach, to get a new set of data that will make it easy to determine whether there is a 2036 impact risk.
Re:Impact the moon? (Score:3, Informative)
It is certain not to hit the moon on this pass, just as its guaranteed not to hit the Earth. Uncertainty of the asteroid's position is within 10s of kilometers, more than enough to make sure theres no risk of that.
If it were to impact the moon, we can determine the relative Delta-V it would apply. The velocity of the asteroid relative to the Earth moon system upon entry is approximately 5.9 km/s, according the JPL NEO page, and has a mass of ~2.7e10 kg. The Moon is moving at ~1 km/s and has a mass of 7.3e22 kg. Assuming an inelastic collision, and that the impact is along the velocity vector (where it will have the largest impact), and applying conservation of momentum, you get a whopping 1.8 nm/s velocity change. So basically, the asteroid is far too small to have any kind of noticeable effect on the moon. Looking at the surface these kind of events happen all the time (cosmologically).