Posted on 11/09/2011 3:36:56 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Explanation: Asteroid 2005 YU55 passed by the Earth yesterday, posing no danger. The space rock, estimated to be about 400 meters across, coasted by just inside the orbit of Earth's Moon. Although the passing of smaller rocks near the Earth is not very unusual -- in fact small rocks from space strike Earth daily -- a rock this large hasn't passed this close since 1976. Were YU55 to have struck land, it might have caused a magnitude seven earthquake and left a city-sized crater. A perhaps larger danger would have occurred were YU55 to have struck the ocean and raised a large tsunami. The above radar image was taken two days ago by the Deep Space Network radio telescope in Goldstone, California, USA. YU55 was discovered only in 2005, indicating that other potentially hazardous asteroids might lurk in our Solar System currently undetected. Objects like YU55 are hard to detect because they are so faint and move so fast. However, humanity's ability to scan the sky to detect, catalog, and analyze such objects has increased notably in recent years.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: Deep Space Network, JPL, NASA]
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Is this a brain scan of Obama? ;-)
So, when do the Timeshare developers show up?
To big ,way to big!
Or are you referring to the density?
:)
Oh yeah. Couldn’t even see it with the naked eye. Next.
Back of Bill Clinton’s head.
Damn! That thing looks ominous. Guess we dodged another bullet.... until it assumes orbit around Earth and the shuttles start landing... (play Twilight Zone theme)...
Why didn’t they get a better picture? Didn’t they have a good Nikon like me?
I also read somewhere that next time it comes (2036?) it might hit us? I don’t like that, I plan to still be alive...
It seems to me that this could have happened a lot of times without us knowing.
I got to see it!
A couple of club members and I went out to the edge of town (helps when a member owns a construction yard).
We set up at 15in Dob and took turns watching this little chunk of charcoal just zipping along. It didn’t pass in front of any stars that we saw, but, it was close enough to many that you really got a feeling of movement.
It looked like it was the fastest moving non-manmade object I’ve seen that wasn’t burning.
Go out tonight and catch the Moon and Jupiter.
If you have a good western horizon, see if you can catch Mercury and Antares. You’ll need binoculars for this, but, it can be done.
Ooops.
Mercury and Antares are near Venus.
Just so long as it’s not near Uranus! :0)
Do you LAO know where we can find photos of the object which were taken by private citizens?
First “movie” of asteroid YU55 released by NASA
November 8, 2011 | 4:37 pm
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/first-movie-of-asteroid-yu55-released-by-nasa.html
Wasn’t this supposed to hit the earth and generate an ELE?
Didn’t the world end last month sometime? Sigh...
I think that was the 2012 wangdoodles, and the Nibiru nimrods.
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