Posted on 11/09/2018 6:56:14 PM PST by BenLurkin
Three chunky asteroids will zoom by Earth this weekend, and one of them is getting closer to our planet than the moon itself.
On Saturday (Nov. 10), the near-Earth asteroid 2018 VX1 will zip within about 236,100 miles (380,000 kilometers) of Earth. That's closer than the moon, which hangs out about 238,900 miles (384,400 km) away as it orbits Earth.
Gianluca Masi, founder and director of the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy, which is live-streaming the celestial show online here starting at 1 p.m. EST (18:00 UTC) on Saturday.
…
People here on Earth will be able to see the star of the show — asteroid 2018 VX1 — online at about 1:20 p.m. EST (18:20 UTC), "the moment of its minimum distance from us," Masi said. This particular asteroid was discovered by scientists at the Mount Lemmon Survey, near Tucson, Arizona, just a few days ago, on Nov. 4. Two days later, the Minor Planet Center announced the discovery, estimaging the asteroid's diameter to be between 26 and 59 feet (8 and 18 m).
The Virtual Telescope snapped the above photo of asteroid 2018 VX1 with a single, 600-second exposure on Nov. 8.
"The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid; this is why stars show as long trails," Masi said. "The asteroid looks like a sharp dot of light in the center of the image, marked by two red lines."
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
*ping*
Anybody know if that’s close enough to be captured or is the speed of the Asteroid too great?
Just don’t get any asteroids near Uranus.
Your or My -nus ?
Oh, I think it'd make a louder noise than *that*.
The Bugs are ranging?
Is there a possibility it could hit California or DC?
How about Broward county Florida?
If we all push really hard against the ground can we get further away?
If it blew out SE Florida, the world would be a better place.
not so worrying about 239K miles away, but 3K between it and the moon? would it make a big crater?
Better tell pokohontos not to send up any smoke signals.
3K between it and the moon's orbital path. The moon would have to be at a specific place on that path in order for the asteroid to come within 3K miles of it.
Now we are fat shaming asteroids?
That's not how Celestial Mechanics work!
Unless an object strikes the Earth (or is at least slowed down by the Earth's atmosphere = aerobraking), it will fly by it (assuming that the object, itself, doesn't have thrusters).
Regards,
That's not how Mathematics works!
If I live 1,000 miles away from Denver, Colorado and a friend of mine lives 1,001 miles away from Denver, Colorado - it does not necessarily follow that he and I live only 1 mile apart from each other, n'est-ce pas?
Regards,
That is just at the edge of being too close. If that thing deviates any further in it could be a problem.
If that thing deviates a little inward we could have a problem. Stuff hits our atmosphere all the time. Most of it is small and burns up. Some stuff impacts. And some things streak in and keep going on out. It’s a crapshoot. But something big will hit us at some point, of that you can be certain.
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