Posted on 04/30/2010 2:37:47 AM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
An asteroid on the list of potentially dangerous space rocks that could endanger the Earth was caught on camera as it zoomed past our planet this month, and found to be larger than astronomers originally thought.
The asteroid buzzed the Earth on April 19 and came within 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) of the planet. That's about six times the distance between Earth and the moon.
Astronomers used the planetary radar system on the famed Arecibo radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico to spot the asteroid, called 2005 YU55, over four days starting on April 19. The photo revealed the asteroid as a half-lit space rock flying through the solar system.
"This object is on the list of 'potentially hazardous asteroids' maintained by the Minor Planet Center, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.," Arecibo astronomers said in a statement. [More asteroid photos.]
The astronomers found that the asteroid is about 1,300 feet (400 meters) in size – about a quarter-mile (400 meters) long and twice as big as originally thought. The Arecibo telescope's planetary radar system resolved features on the asteroid down to about 25 feet (7.5 meters).
Asteroid 2005 YU55 was first discovered by astronomer Robert McMillan, of the Spacewatch detection team, on Dec. 28, 2005. And this isn't the only chance astronomers will have to study 2005 YU55.
The space rock will be back.
On Nov. 8, 2011, the asteroid will complete another trip around the sun and swing by Earth again just inside the moon's orbit. It should fly by at a distance of 191,120 miles (307,577 km), about eight-tenths the distance between Earth and the moon. The distance from Earth to the moon is on average about 238,900 miles (384,472 km).
The asteroid poses no risk of impacting the Earth when it returns next year, though astronomers will keep watching its path through space.
NASA routinely tracks asteroids and comets that may fly near the Earth with a network of telescopes on the ground and in space. The agency's Near-Earth Object Observations program is responsible for finding potentially dangerous asteroids and studying their orbits to determine if they pose a risk of hitting the Earth.
So far, the program has found about 85 percent of the huge asteroids that fly near Earth, but it hasn't been quite as good at finding rocks that are smaller. The program detected only 15 percent of space rocks that are 460-feet (140-meters) wide and could potentially cause widespread devastation at their impact sites if they hit us, according to a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences.
Only 5 percent of asteroids 164-feet (50-meters) across have been found, the report found. More funding is needed if NASA hopes to reach a Congress-mandated goal of tracking all potentially dangerous space rocks.
President Barack Obama has proposed a budget increase in NASA's asteroid-tracking program that would boost its resources from $3.7 million in 2009 to $20.3 million in 2011. The program received a $2 million increase in 2010 to support the Arecibo telescope.
Obama has also proposed sending astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025 to study it and gather data that could help astronomers find ways to deflect space rocks before they threaten all life on Earth.
The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center which is managed by Cornell University under a deal with the National Science Foundation. Astronomers with Cornell, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and the University of Maine participated in the observing of asteroid 2005 YU55.
One of these days, one of these suckers is gonna smack us good...
I hope they are better at this than they are at working with climategate! ;-)
Say like, maybe 12/21/2012.
Its trying to land...
Its carrying the original birfth certificate...
Put out a big net and catch it as it goes by next time...
The good news is that by this time next year, NASA will be so deeply entrenched in the new Muslim Outreach Program, they won’t even notice.
Well, if it hits us, at least we won't have to worry about Obama getting reelected.
The later the calculated impact time, the less energy needed to deflect an asteroid out of Earth’s path. The energy can be so tiny it could be delivered by a particle beam from a solar powered satellite.
If this deadly missile keeps buzzing our airspace, we’ll be forced to rename it “Air Force One”.
How is it possible to know you have “found” 15% of an unknown quantity. Don’t you have to have found all of something before you can determine a portion?
It's similar to the theory used to calculate number os jobs saved or created...
It's that new math they've been teaching in publik skools since the '70's. See how handy it is?
Not if you work for the government, ie, unemployment rate, census, climate change data, IRS, et al.................
If it’s comin back in 2011, it will surely be back in 2012...and we all know what that mean! ;)
There’s that “Unexpected” word, again.
ACORN will try to register it as a Democrat?
That looks like what you’d see if you put Obama in front of a floor lamp and looked into one of his ears.
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