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Posted on 01/02/2014 1:22:39 PM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets
New Year's Eve didn't stop observer Richard Kowalski from scanning the sky for near-Earth objects (NEOs). Using the 60-inch telescope on Arizona's Mount Lemmon, he noticed a 19th-magnitude blip skimming through northern Orion in a seven-image series begun at 5:16 p.m. (1:16 Universal Time on January 1st). After confirming that it was a new find, Kowalski dutifully submitted positions and times to the IAU's Minor Planet Center.
Thus did the Mount Lemmon reflector, part of the Catalina Sky Survey, discover 2014 AA, the first asteroid found this year.
Impact possibilities for 2014 AA This plot shows the range of possible locations where the small asteroid 2014 AA struck Earth's atmosphere early on January 2, 2014. Bill Gray / Project Pluto But at the time neither Kowalski nor anyone else realized that the little intruder was on a collision course with Earth.
As announced by the MPC a few hours ago, it's "virtually certain" that 2014 AA hit Earth. According to calculations by dynamicist Stephen Chesley (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), the impact occurred over the Atlantic Ocean somewhere between Central America to East Africa. Chesley's "best-fit" collision is just off the coast of West Africa at roughly 2:30 UT this morning.
(Excerpt) Read more at skyandtelescope.com ...
/johnny
Thank God we were not hit by any Double-D’s.
A shame it went down in an ocean. A fragment of that thing would’ve been worth enough money to pay a whole month’s premium on Obamacare!
Not just the location, but the time. Like during the SOTUA later this month
Hmmm...The Last Policeman, anyone? (A sci-if trilogy about Earth awaiting an asteroid strike.)
Sez it probably never reached the earth’s surface. I saw an east coast fireball as I was coming home about a year ago. I saw it far off in the distance, in the early evening and thought to myself, “That looks like a meteor, but it can’t be.” Then it crossed in front of me, low above the horizon, going west to east and I thought it was a helicopter following Route 2 towards Boston, but when it was to the southeast is brightened up and disappeared. I knew what is was, and thousands of others on the east coast reported it, too.
A few years back, I was looking for Venus as a morning star, just after sunrise, and saw a distinct fireball to the southeast, but heard and saw no other reports. I may have been one of the few people to have seen that one.
We would NEVER get that lucky.
Besides, the cockroaches would all go hide in the bunker in time.
AA batteries Earth.
Whatever happened with the plan to name an asteroid after Trayvon Martin?
It was shot down.
A couple years ago, I saw a white fireball (tear drop shape) larger than a basketball land in the river a 100 feet from me. I called a star gazer friend, looked on line and think I asked the FR state board but couldn’t get any confirmation what it might have been.
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