Posted on 07/25/2002 9:34:11 AM PDT by Joe Hadenuf
Next month a newly discovered asteroid will pass close enough to Earth to be easily spotted in small telescopes and even binoculars.
According to calculations by Gareth V. Williams, associate director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the asteroid's August 18th flyby should bring it to within 530,000 kilometers (330,000 miles) of Earth, just outside the Moon's orbital distance.
Astronomers first detected this object, designated 2002 NY40, on July 14th with the 1-meter LINEAR telescope in New Mexico. Thus it was picked up a full month before brushing by Earth, unlike asteroid 2002 MN, whose pass well inside the Moon's orbit was not realized until several days after the fact. The best current estimates suggest that this new interloper is about 500 meters (0.3 mile) across — significantly larger than 2002 MN.
Still quite faint at magnitude 18, 2002 NY40 is making a very tight loop around the star Beta Aquarii. During the next few weeks it will brighten tremendously and yet remain almost motionless in the sky — the eerie signature of an asteroid hurtling right toward Earth!
On the night of Saturday, August 17th, 2002 NY40 should reach magnitude 9.3 when well placed for viewing from North America. At that time its angular velocity will exceed 4 arcminutes per minute, a motion easily perceptible in small telescopes. Sky & Telescope plans to issue detailed observing instructions, through AstroAlerts and SkyandTelescope.com, in the days leading up to this rare event.
A mere 24 hours after it goes by, the asteroid plunges hopelessly beyond reach of Earth-based telescopes as it heads closer to the Sun. (We will then be viewing its unilluminated side, which explains why it becomes so faint, so fast.)
While there is no danger of 2002 NY40 striking Earth during this flyby, a future impact has not been ruled out. Both NEODyS, operated by the University of Pisa, and NASA's Near-Earth Object Program have identified a number of very close encounters in the years to come. These occur either around August 18th as the asteroid heads in toward the Sun, or near February 14th when on its way out. Both agencies are focusing on a flyby just 20 years from now (on August 18, 2022), when there appears to be a 1-in-500,000 chance of an impact — extremely unlikely, but worrisome just the same.
Meanwhile, professional astronomers are gearing up to make the most of this encounter. "2002 NY40 is a potentially very good radar target," notes Michael Nolan (Cornell University). He urges advanced amateurs to obtain detailed photometry of the asteroid on the nights leading up to the flyby. A good light curve, revealing the object's rotation rate, would help in selecting the radar instrumentation to be used with the 1,000-foot dish at Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
From Sky and Telescope:
By Roger W. Sinnott
The thin crescent Moon sets early on the evening of August 12th, leaving the sky fully dark for this year’s Perseid meteor shower. The display should peak later that night for observers throughout the Northern Hemisphere, especially as morning twilight begins. That’s when the radiant (the patch of sky between Perseus and Cassiopeia from which the Perseids appear to come) is highest in midnorthern latitudes. Skywatchers can expect to see 60 or more Perseids per hour, provided the sky is very clear and dark. If you miss the Perseids that night, all is not lost. The shower lasts for two weeks or so, with excellent rates in the predawn hours of August 10th through 15th.
Far fewer meteors will appear before midnight, even on the night of the shower’s maximum, because the radiant is then quite low in the sky. The radiant is always low or below the horizon for countries like Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, where few, if any, Perseids can be seen. The 1992 return of Comet Swift-Tuttle, parent comet of the Perseids, brought with it a “new peak” that was superimposed on the shallower, traditional Perseid maximum. By 1999, however, the new peak had greatly subsided (Sky & Telescope: August 2001, page 108), and it's completely missing from first-look analyses of the 2000 and 2001 Perseids by the International Meteor Organization. So the forecast for 2002 reads much as it would have in the 1980s: the Perseids should peak for 12 hours or more, centered on the time when the Sun’s ecliptic longitude is 140.0° (equinox 2000.0). That translates to 22h Universal Time on August 12th this year. European observers are optimally positioned for the Perseid peak, but North Americans are not far behind.
Simply counting meteors is one good way for amateurs to contribute to meteor science. The techniques are explained in the meteor section of this Web site. But the Perseids are rich in bright meteors with long-lasting trains, and skywatchers may find other projects almost irresistible.
Why do you give Clinton credit. It takes years to get a program off the ground so they must have been initiated BEFORE Clinton.
And I also think astronomers would be the last ones to yell doomsday! They generally stick to facts and understand that actually getting hit by a sizable asteriod is very remote.
Unless you intend to actively maintain the object's orbit forever, there will be no suitable permanent orbit. It will probably crash into the moon at some point, or escape from the moon and go out of control. Could go anywhere. The two exceptions are the moon's L-4 and L-5 points where the object could be parked safely for an extended period of time, even if not forever.
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