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."

Dear Asteroid

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice flying, Apollo.

- Starbuck

SG-1

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So it wasn't a Gu'ald attack?

Re:

[AikonMGB]

Do you mean Goa'uld?

Re:SG-1

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean "I'm a pedant"?

Re:

[dbIII]

Can I have that one extra hot with a garlic naan on the side?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[JackpotMonkey]

No no, this is much more likely a Zerg attack to publicize the upcoming Starcraft 2 Expansion, inspired by their Starship troopers brethren.

Re:

[Nefarious Wheel]

You have no escape make your time.
Ha. Ha. Ha.

Re:

[TheScorpion420]

No it was the fucking bugs from Klendathu!

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

C'mon, even an accidental Teltack crash would cause more damage than that.

List

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_asteroids

EEEP!

[MrDoh!]

10k wide? And we don't have Bruce Willis on stand by at ALL TIMES!?!?!?

Re:EEEP!

[FatLittleMonkey]

So you never want him to close his eyes? Never want him to fall asleep?

Re:

[mu51c10rd]

Affleck's a bit younger...we'll make do.

Not to worry.

[hawk]

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

wow..!

[zubieta]

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!

I read the title wrong...

[Stratus311]

What I read: "Russian Meteor Likely an Apollo Astronaut Chunk"

Re:

[JackpotMonkey]

I wondered why I hadnt heard much about Tom Hanks (Apollo 13) lately.

Re:I read the title wrong...

[tragedy]

"Open the pod bay doors HAL!"
"First, you gotta do the truffle shuffle."

Re:

[kms_one]

I saw "Apollo" and thought US Space debris...and considered hiding under my desk as World War III ensues. (There was one Russian minister that declared that the meteorite was not from space but part of a U.S. weapons test).

Really?.

[mu51c10rd]

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?

Re:

[Tablizer]

I initially interpreted it as a spent Apollo mission rocket stage, and was thinking, "Oh the lawsuits!"

Re:

[Goaway]

There is apparently this one class of fairly harmless people who just can't accept that life isn't as exciting as an action movie.

Re:

[Rockoon]

Simultaneously in Topeka Kansas a 41 year old woman bludgeons her husband to death with a frozen honey ham. Coincidence? You decide.

Re:John Dvorak says it's fake

[ozmanjusri]

claimed that the video and photos of the impact area showed just a perfect ice hole

I've heard rumours that John C Dvorak has been described as "just a perfect ice hole" himself on occasion.

Coincidence? You decide.

Re:

[rwise2112]

and photos of the impact area showed just a perfect ice hole

Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes

Discovered in...

[Miletos]

"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 :(

Re:Discovered in...

[FatLittleMonkey]

You're thinking comets, like C/2013 A1. Asteroids are numbered in order of discovery. Ceres was 1st, Pallas was 2nd. This one was 1866th.

Re:

[mu51c10rd]

Is there a prize for discovering the 2000th?

Re:

[FatLittleMonkey]

2000 Herschel [wikipedia.org]

But they cheated and jumped ahead. Herschel was discovered in 1960 (and possibly 1934). 1999 Hirayama and 2001 Einstein were discovered February/March 1973. They do that a lot, for example, Quaoar (big TNO) was given 50000 even though 49,999 and 50001 were discovered two years earlier.

(I was wrong about naming as well, asteroid candidates are also given a year-code designation, switching to sequential (-ish) numbering when their orbits are locked down. 1866 Sisyphus' was initially 1972 XA. Not

Re: Discovered in...

[jurco]

In Soviet Russia, asteroid discovers you.

Re:

[fustakrakich]

I thought it was released in 1969...

Ummm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something's wrong when a 10 KILOMETER wide astroid has 'sisy' in its name, just sayin'.

Re:

[amiga3D]

it wasn't funny

Re:

[CptNerd]

Not many people are going to get that one. Keep trying...

No surprise...

[Kentari]

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 [minorplanetcenter.net] knows of only 4803) and 747 known Atens, so there was a very good chance that the meteorite was an Apollo...

Re:

[Dr La]

(I don't know where the 5200 number in the summary comes from but IAU's Minor Planet Center [minorplanetcenter.net] knows of only 4803) .

There is a disparity between their summary table (which lists 4803) and the full table of orbital elements of all Apollo's they (the MPC) provide. The latter counts 5203 objects

Lousiest topic title ever

[Dr La]

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

Apollo chunks?

[mu51c10rd]

DId one of the Apollo astronauts have trouble with weightlessness? Perhaps a bad breakfast that morning?

Are you doing YOUR part?

[DarthVain]

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?#

Can it be tracked back farther?

[craighansen]

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