Tonight's Asteroid Will Pass So Close To Earth, Home Telescopes Can See It (salon.com) 43
80 minutes from now, an asteroid will pass so close to earth that home astronomers will be able to see it, writes Salon.
Slashdot reader PolygamousRanchKid shares their report: Experts say the asteroid, known as Asteroid 2000 QW7, will miss our planet by about 3 million miles -- around 14 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. And while that distance is astonishingly close on an astronomical scale, it does not suggest that the asteroid is going to hit Earth -- although it has a small chance to strike our planet in the future. The closeness of its pass on Saturday will allow astronomers to hone their measurements of its trajectory, allowing for more accurate calculations of its strike probability in the future.
Gianluca Masi, Scientific Director at The Virtual Telescope, told Salon in a statement that amateur astronomers can view its fly-by, which is at 7:54 pm on the East Coast, but will have to have a telescope with a diameter of at least 250 millimeters. [Heres' the telescope-positioning coordinates.] Masi said a smaller telescope might work if combined with a sensitive imaging device that can also record its apparent motion across the stars...
NASA released a statement this week to the public to emphasize it is not a threat, noting that it is actually one of two asteroids to pass Earth this weekend. The second asteroid, asteroid 2010 C01, is estimated to be 120 to 260 meters in size (400 to 850 feet).
The first asteroid's diamter is between 300 and 600 meters -- so up to 1968 feet, or a little more than one-third of a mile.
Slashdot reader PolygamousRanchKid shares their report: Experts say the asteroid, known as Asteroid 2000 QW7, will miss our planet by about 3 million miles -- around 14 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. And while that distance is astonishingly close on an astronomical scale, it does not suggest that the asteroid is going to hit Earth -- although it has a small chance to strike our planet in the future. The closeness of its pass on Saturday will allow astronomers to hone their measurements of its trajectory, allowing for more accurate calculations of its strike probability in the future.
Gianluca Masi, Scientific Director at The Virtual Telescope, told Salon in a statement that amateur astronomers can view its fly-by, which is at 7:54 pm on the East Coast, but will have to have a telescope with a diameter of at least 250 millimeters. [Heres' the telescope-positioning coordinates.] Masi said a smaller telescope might work if combined with a sensitive imaging device that can also record its apparent motion across the stars...
NASA released a statement this week to the public to emphasize it is not a threat, noting that it is actually one of two asteroids to pass Earth this weekend. The second asteroid, asteroid 2010 C01, is estimated to be 120 to 260 meters in size (400 to 850 feet).
The first asteroid's diamter is between 300 and 600 meters -- so up to 1968 feet, or a little more than one-third of a mile.
"Astonishingly close"? (Score:1)
No, astonishingly close would be bouncing off our atmosphere in a near-miss. 14 times the distance between the earth and the moon can only be "astonishingly close" for a hack blogger needing a clickbaity headline.
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Lets rephrase it: Even home telescopes will be able to collect enough light of them for the human eye to generate signals for the brain from it. Pedantic enough?
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"Astonishingly close on an astronomical scale " seems fair enough
Sure, on an astronomical scale every thing is close. Alpha Centauri is close compared to Andromeda. But usually interesting articles about a "close asteroid" feature something between the Earth and the moon, not 14 times the distance (unless it has the size of a planet).
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And on a universal scale, it's just missing our planet by a gnat's whisker!
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"Astonishingly close on an astronomical scale" is an accurate description because space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
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So what about the moon ? If 3000000 miles is "astonishingly" close, could we say that at 240000 miles, the moon orbits "insanely", "ludicrously", "obcenely" close to the Earth ?
Re: "Astonishingly close"? (Score:2)
Though, the polically correct term is "in orbit".
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Obscenely close. The Moon and Earth go everywhere in the solar system together, they are practically inseparable.
I would have gone for "intimately". I don't know about you, but I'm quite attached to my moon.
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Yeah not for long (astronomically speaking) since the moon is drifting away by four centimeters a year.
It will wander off on it's own course, seek a new life, a new civilization, to boldly go where no moon has gone before!
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Re: "Astonishingly close"? (Score:2)
THIS IS WHY I READ SLASHDOT (Score:5, Insightful)
These sorts of articles are why I come to slashdot.
Not to read about plastic pollution..
Or universal basic income.
Or how Uber / Amazon / Flavor-of-the-month-evil-corporation treats its employees badly.
Or how college is bad, and people with degrees are stupid.
News for Nerds. Can we get back to more of that, please?
Re:THIS IS WHY I READ SLASHDOT (Score:5, Funny)
I couldn't disagree more, this story serves none of my needs to signal my great virtue, express righteous indignation over some perceived grievance, or talk about how swell it would be to live in a socialist utopia. And, how , pray tell, am I going to blame this asteroid on Trump?
Really, you need to think things through before you post.
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this story serves none of my needs to signal my great virtue, express righteous indignation over some perceived grievance
Oh, but you managed, didn't you?
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I couldn't disagree more, this story serves none of my needs to signal my great virtue, express righteous indignation over some perceived grievance, or talk about how swell it would be to live in a socialist utopia. And, how , pray tell, am I going to blame this asteroid on Trump?
Feeding the outrage machine is what the comments are for.
Re:THIS IS WHY I READ SLASHDOT (Score:4, Insightful)
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In other words: You want to read about things that interest you, not things that are important.
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lol, this should be news for most people... not just for nerds.
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If it would land on Washington DC... (Score:3)
It would be well worth whatever fallout it caused; eliminating all the existing corruption on "Both Sides" would at least allow some new thinking.
Relative size (Score:2)
"The first asteroid's diamter is between 300 and 600 meters"
Thats quite a variation - do they really not know what size it is, or is it just a weird shape?
Anyway at 3 million miles it wouldn't be very easy to see, especially if its not very reflective.
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"The first asteroid's diamter is between 300 and 600 meters"
Thats quite a variation - do they really not know what size it is, or is it just a weird shape?
When an asteroid is far away, it's a dot: all you know is how bright the dot is. From that you can guess the diameter... if you know the albedo (ie., reflectivity). So the error bars on diameter are actually the uncertainty in reflectance.
When it gets closer, you can make any of several additional measurements that will tell you the actual size.
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True but this particular one makes a visit every 19 years, I would have thought one of the big scopes would have settled the matter decades ago... but apparently not
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True but this particular one makes a visit every 19 years,
When it was spotted 19 years ago it was probably only identified as a close approach after it made the closest approach. So, this will be the first close approach after discovery.
Amazing magical sig figs strike again! (Score:1)
between 300 and 600 meters -- so up to 1968 feet
Incredible how a units conversion can upgrade precision from one digit to four!
fucking morons
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between 300 and 600 meters -- so up to 1968 feet
Incredible how a units conversion can upgrade precision from one digit to four!
So this is how CSI infinite zoom works! Unit conversion!
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And how do you come to the fucking moronic idea that the units precision has increased?
Especially from one digit to four?
Re: Amazing magical sig figs strike again! (Score:2)
He(?) doesn't expect 300-600 meters to be a precise number such that 614 meters would be entirely out of the question or such that 597 wouldn't be the actual upper bound, but rather merely a rounded ballpark figure. Neither 614 nor 597 convert to 1968 as an upper bound, and if the units are not precise to three digits then there is little need for the feet conversion to be.
You can see Ceres with binoculars. (Score:3)
You can see the asteroid Ceres with just a pair of binoculars, and that is way out past Mars. :-)
I guess this one must be a bit smaller
When it gets CLOSE, call me (Score:2)