Asteroids Flyby — 2010 RF12 & 2010 RX30

Ernesto Guido writes "Two small asteroids (2010 RF12 & 2010 RX30) will pass within the Moon's distance of Earth today, September 08, 2010." One is 6-14 meters and the other is 10-20, so even if they change course, don't expect Bruce Willis to be called in.

Bruce Willis

[joe2tiger]

I never saw Armageddon when it came out and never bothered to rent it since. I heard so many bad things about that movie.

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Re:Bruce Willis

[ohcrapitssteve]

He's probably thinking of Fifth Element, in which Tiny Lister plays the president of Earth. Essentially, some unnamed evil force, in the form of an asteroid that can make phone calls, is bent on destroying all life.

I made that sound really silly but it's actually one of my favorite movies of all time.

Re:Bruce Willis

[MozeeToby]

Scientific inaccuracy doesn't bother me unless it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. Take the dreaded movie The Core as an example. Ship that can withstand the Earth's pressure? Sure, movie doesn't work without it. Laser that can drill through solid rock at many kilometers per hour? Again, necessary for the story. I can deal with that because you can't make the same movie without abandoning reality.

On the other hand, boosting the power of your nuclear weapon by placing reactor fuel next to the bomb? There's a dozen more accurate ways the ending could have played out that would have left the rest of the movie unchanged. Having the characters walk from one compartment of the ship to the other, when the exterior shots clearly show that they should have to climb ladders? Completely destroys the movie for me. At that point it's not about the story at all, it's just plain laziness on the part of everyone involved. It's not the inaccuracy that ruins the movie for me, it's the laziness.

Re:Not so small ...

[mcgrew]

It wouldn't even hit the ground. As TFA says, it would burn up in the atmosphere. And if it were bigger, large enough to be 20 yards wide when it hit, chances are it would hit the ocean (most of the world is ocean) and wouldn't even produce a small tsunami.

A 20 meter astreoid IS small.

Re:why not put something on there?

[Teancum]

Most rocks that come this close to Earth are in orbits tied to Earth's and will come close again every few years. If we wanted to put a probe (or a manned lander) onto one of these, we could target one we've spotted before and arrange to intercept it on a future visit. There's no obvious incentive to visit one the moment we spot it.

Surprisingly, the Obama administration is proposing a manned mission to some of these smaller chunks of rock. Lockheed-Martin wrote a white paper on a proposed mission to an asteroid using the Orion spacecraft that can be accessed here:

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/ssc/Orion/Toolkit/OrionAsteroidMissionWhitePaperAug2010.pdf [lockheedmartin.com]

The missing planning is still at a very early stage and there is no reason to believe that Congress will necessarily fund such a project, but it seems like this is a cheaper option than going to the Moon or to Mars, and at the very least would help to prove deep-space manned spaceflight capabilities for missions to other places.

While there won't be an incentive to visit an asteroid right after it is spotted, there are some smaller asteroids that have already been spotted that might make some interesting targets in the future.