Posted on 10/14/2017 1:45:15 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The results were mixed. Koschny said one big radar system in Puerto Rico did not work due to damage from Hurricane Maria but that another U.S. based radar system was used instead.
“This is exactly why we do this exercise – to not be surprised by these things,” he said.
Radar images showed the asteroid was about 10 to 12 meters (yards) wide, roughly the size of an asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013...
Koschny said the ESA now needed to update its predictions for how close 2012 TC4 will come to Earth on its next flyby, which has so far been forecast for 2079.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
And the lead time before the killer astroid impacts Earth in a ELE is ...?
Or the super volcano in Yellowstone first......
Or the super volcano in Yellowstone gets us first......
If they wait to stop an asteroid by radar that close......bend over...put your head between your knees and kiss your @$$ goodbye.
I have my tinfoil within ready reach, but it would take a couple of minutes to fashion an effective hat. The more warning, the better. For a real planet killer, I’d need time for the duct tape as well.
Stock up on toilet paper and water and prepare to shelter in place?
Yes, exactly.
Plus a Wile E. Coyote parasol to hold over my head.
Oh no!
It’ll be back in 2079!
I’d better get ready!
I’ll have them put TWO bottles of Jim Beam in my casket.
Wasn’t it here just 5 years ago?
I don’t know.
I’ll check my diary.
Let’s see.....14 October 2012.......I had spaghetti for lunch.....my wife yelled at me because she lost the car keys.....my Son was playing computer games.....Hillary Clinton was lying to us.....
Nope, nothing about an asteroid.
Just another day.
http://earthsky.org/space/near-earth-asteroid-2012-tc4-close-pass-october-2017
Prior to this year, this object was observed for just one week in the year 2012. Astronomers tracked its orbit well enough to know it would return – and come close to Earth – but they didn’t have its orbit pinned down precisely. Last summer, experts were already saying they knew this space rock wouldn’t hit us, but they thought 2012 TC4 might give us a close shave, passing as close as 4,200 miles (6,800 km). In late July, though, astronomers recovered the space rock – picked it up telescopically again, after not seeing it for some years – and the new observations let them refine their knowledge of 2012 TC4’s orbit and better compute its closest distance to Earth later this month...
...The calculations on the October, 2017 pass of asteroid 2012 TC4, for example, were originally based on only seven days of tracking it, shortly after it was discovered in 2012. Then we lost the object again, in the depths of space, as it sped away from us. That’s an exceedingly common scenario for close-passing asteroids, which are, after all, just flying chunks (some more like flying mountains) of rock in space. They sweep past, then go their way...
... they know that asteroid 2012 TC4 has made many close approaches to Earth in the past...
...This summer, an international collaboration of telescopes is trying to reacquire the asteroid – that is, find it again in space – with the goal of precisely determining its orbit.
I think it’ll be back sooner than 62 years.
When do you think it will be back?
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do for a rock speeding by.
Usually speeding rocks are from the neighbor kids and they don’t miss very often.
I could get one of those boards like the pit crews have at the races.
I could write,
“You’re in third place. Pick it up!”
I don’t know if asteroids can read American.
I was just using the number from the story.
Of course, excepting the wifey screamy thingy, those could be any day in most of our diaries.
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