Up-Front Seats For Tonight's Near-Earth Asteroid 99
spineas writes "In case you're not in a prime viewing position for tonight's fly-by of Asteroid 2000 EM26, never fear, for the event will be webcast live for all around the world to see. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the Slooh Space Camera will be broadcasting the 3-football-field-long asteroid as it zips by us at nearly 27,000 miles per hour. Astronomer Bob Berman will be answering questions during the broadcast, submitted via Twitter with the hashtag #Asteroid."
Re:metric, motherfuckers (Score:5, Informative)
It *is* metric. The diameter of the object in question is 270m, or exactly 3x the minimum length of an association football pitch [fifa.com] (a.k.a., a "soccer field").
ahh britain (Score:4, Informative)
Welcome to the strange land of Britain, were we use metric for distances less than a kilometer and mile for those above, therefore we measure speed in miles.
We weigh our food in grams and kilograms but weigh ourselves in stones and ounces.
When it's hot a lot of us (older generations) will use fahrenheit, but when it's cold out comes the celsius.
But we will happily have a go at Americans when they decide to use imperial units.
What's special about the time? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes it's the closest approach, but it's still going to be 3.2 million km away. If the Earth were the size of a basketball, the asteroid would be 560 feet away and only 1/5 the size of a pixel in an iPhone retina display. The 0.017 arcsecond angular resolution requires a 6.6 meter telescope to see more than just a point of light.. And as for "hurtling past Earth" as some reports say, if it were heading straight for earth at 27,000 miles per hour it would take 73.5 hours or more than 3 days to get here. In our scaled example it would be travelling at a whopping 0.00255 km/h, under 1/10th the speed of a garden snail. The asteroid should have close to the same visibility for many hours around the time of closest approach. Right now (5 hours before) it could at most be 2% smaller through a telescope. [infoplease.com].
I think it's cool, I just wish the articles wouldn't hype so much and would include more context.