Posted on 03/20/2021 8:46:29 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The largest asteroid to come near our planet this year will swing by Sunday (March 21), giving astronomers a rare opportunity to glimpse a remnant from the birth of our solar system, astronomers say.
2001FO32, first discovered in 2001, has a well-known orbit and poses no danger to Earth.
At its closest encounter with our blue orb, the space rock will still be a whopping 1.25 million miles (2 million kilometers) away, about the distance you would travel if you flew 50 times around the globe. "There is no chance the asteroid will get any closer to Earth than 1.25 million miles," Paul Chodas, the director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, said in a NASA statement. That means, there's no need to worry about an imminent collision; in fact, there's no need to worry about it for centuries to come, NASA said.
2001FO32 is estimated to be somewhere between 1,300 and 2,230 feet (440 and 680 meters) wide, but when it was first discovered in 2001, scientists thought it was about 3,000 feet (1 km) wide. The upcoming close encounter will allow scientists a chance to better measure the beast.
This close encounter will allow astronomers to not only get a better understanding of the asteroid's size but also figure out its makeup. With NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on top of Hawaii's Mauna Kea, for example, astronomers hope to measure how light reflects off the asteroid's surface to figure out what minerals it's made of.
What's more, researchers also hope to bounce radar signals off of the asteroid using dish antennas from NASA's Deep Space Network to better understand its size and rotation rate, and to potentially discover surface features or small satellites (for example, a small moon).
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Come on, Asteroid!
No chance
No worry
No need to worry
*Nothing to see here, please disperse.
No kidding. Sweet relief.
SMOD is late.
Very late.
I am going to file a complaint.
If it’s 1.25 millions away from Earth that is about 5 times farther than the moon.
“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.”
“Bleem miserable venchit! Bleem forever mestinglish asunder frapt.
Gashee morphousite, thou expungiest quoopisk!
Fripping lyshus wimbgunts, awhilst moongrovenly kormzibs.
Gerond withoutitude form into formless bloit, why not then? Moose.”
It would have been smart to land a device to collect samples and return them to earth. There might be gold on its surface.
So.hot fudge Sunday is coming on Sunday.😏
So, take an umbrella with me tomorrow? Got it.
Please hit DC
No worries... Just so long as Spock did not inhale some spores and start farting around with the controls because he needs to mate...
(Yeah, I know, I mashed together 3-1/2 different plots, there.)
Is its name Clark? Quick call Gerard Butler and head to Greenland. Great movie!!!
Ceres is going to swing by us? Well, maybe not, it’s a ‘’dwarf’’ planet but it is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Earth.
Earthquakes in Japan, Covid pouring in through the southern border ... man, the years off to a great start.
Easy for you to say.
We just had a big Hemorrhoid trip up the steps of AF One. If he had landed in another position, he’d be the late 46th president of the US.
Missed it by “that” much!
You may not be interested in it, but who knows? Someday it may be interested in you.
Regards,
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