#asteroidwatch

[gkonboard]

🌌 Defending Earth from Cosmic Threats! 🚀 How scientists plan to stop asteroids! 🌠

Join us on a cosmic journey as we explore the fascinating world of asteroid defense! Discover how scientists are using cutting-edge methods to detect, monitor, and prevent potential asteroid impacts. From explosive solutions to early detection, find out how we're gearing up for planetary protection. Don't miss this space odyssey — hit play now!

[kylofrk]

ADAM DRIVER TALKS TO NASA ABOUT ASTEROIDS. 

[vicislifeinbinary]

Don’t Look Up? 🤫☄️ A rare phenomenon happens tonight! “A large stony asteroid will safely pass Earth on January 18, 2022. Its estimated size is around 3,280 feet (about 1 km or .6 of a mile), around 2 1/2 times the height of the Empire State Building.  As you can see from this asteroid’s label – (7482) 1994 PC1 – we’ve known about it since 1994. It is classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid due to its size and relatively close flybys of our planet. An asteroid of this size strikes Earth approximately every 600,000 years.” Near-Earth asteroid 1994 PC1 (~1 km wide) is very well known and has been studied for decades by our #PlanetaryDefense experts. Rest assured, 1994 PC1 will safely fly past our planet 1.2 million miles away next Tues., Jan. 18. Track it yourself here: https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/asteroids/ Live video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLrj1xa43pw Text source: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-1994-pc1-closest-jan-18-2022/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #asteroid1994PC1 #asteroid #NASA #planet #space #outerspace #gravity #spacetime #telescope #TV #RobertMcNaught #AsteroidWatch #xrisk #existentialrisk #governance #curious #1994PC1 #astronomer #astronomy #universe #interesting #science #nature #Denmark #curiosity #DontLookUp #McNaught #unique #cosmos (at Outer Space) https://www.instagram.com/p/CY4wYvqsVSN/?utm_medium=tumblr

[mellyhatchet]

You can clearly see the Star that shouldn't be there underneath my finger and above the roof in this photo. A Star shining brightly NEXT TO THE SUN??!! You can't see stars in the daytime! What is this then??? #asteroid #asteroidwatch #comet #planetx #nibiru #nibirunears #theENDisNear #apocalypsenow #MellyCranfordPix #lookup #SkyWatcher #OrmondBeach #Florida #amatureastronomer #stars #planets #spacenerd #space #whataretheyhiding #skyanomalies #bigFloridasky

[apod]

2021 August 29

Orbits of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech

Explanation: Are asteroids dangerous? Some are, but the likelihood of a dangerous asteroid striking the Earth during any given year is low. Because some past mass extinction events have been linked to asteroid impacts, however, humanity has made it a priority to find and catalog those asteroids that may one day affect life on Earth. Pictured here are the orbits of the over 1,000 known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). These documented tumbling boulders of rock and ice are over 140 meters across and will pass within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth -- about 20 times the distance to the Moon. Although none of them will strike the Earth in the next 100 years -- not all PHAs have been discovered, and past 100 years, many orbits become hard to predict. Were an asteroid of this size to impact the Earth, it could raise dangerous tsunamis, for example. To investigate Earth-saving strategies, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is planned for launch later this year. Of course rocks and ice bits of much smaller size strike the Earth every day, usually pose no danger, and sometimes creating memorable fireball and meteor displays.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210829.html

[spaceexp]

The asteroid 1998 OR2 safely passed Earth

Asteroid Watch logo. April 29, 2020

Artist's concept of a near-Earth object. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A large asteroid close to Earth safely passed by our planet this Wednesday morning, offering astronomers an exceptional opportunity to study in detail the object 1.5 miles wide (2 kilometers wide). The asteroid, called 1998 OR2, made its closest approach at 5:55 a.m. EDT (2:55 a.m. PDT). Although this is known as a "close approach" by astronomers, it is still a long way off: the asteroid will not approach approximately 3.9 million miles (6.3 million km), passing more than 16 times further than the Moon.

Animation above: This GIF, composed of observations by the Virtual Telescope Project, shows asteroid 1998 OR2 (the central dot) as it traversed the constellation Hydra five days before its closest approach to Earth. It was about 4.4 million miles (7.08 million kilometers) away from Earth at the time. Animation Credits: Dr. Gianluca Masi (Virtual Telescope Project). Asteroid 1998 OR2 was discovered by the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in July 1998, and for the past two decades astronomers have tracked it. As a result, we understand its orbital trajectory very precisely, and we can say with confidence that this asteroid poses no possibility of impact for at least the next 200 years. Its next close approach to Earth will occur in 2079, when it will pass by closer — only about four times the lunar distance. Despite this, 1998 OR2 is still categorized as a large "potentially hazardous asteroid" because, over the course of millennia, very slight changes in the asteroid's orbit may cause it to present more of a hazard to Earth than it does now. This is one of the reasons why tracking this asteroid during its close approach — using telescopes and especially ground-based radar — is important, as observations such as these will enable an even better long-term assessment of the hazard presented by this asteroid. Close approaches by large asteroids like 1998 OR2 are quite rare. The previous close approach by a large asteroid was made by asteroid Florence in September 2017. That 3-mile-wide (5-kilometer-wide) object zoomed past Earth at 18 lunar distances. On average, we expect asteroids of this size to fly by our planet this close roughly once every five years. Since they are bigger, asteroids of this size reflect much more light than smaller asteroids and are therefore easier to detect with telescopes. Almost all near-Earth asteroids (about 98%) of the size of 1998 OR2 or larger have already been discovered, tracked and cataloged. It is extremely unlikely there could be an impact over the next century by one of these large asteroids, but efforts to discover all asteroids that could pose an impact hazard to Earth continue. JPL hosts the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) for NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program in NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. Related article & links: Small Asteroid to Safely Fly by Earth https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/04/small-asteroid-to-safely-fly-by-earth.html Virtual Telescope Project: https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/ More information about CNEOS, asteroids and near-Earth objects can be found at: https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov For more information about NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense For asteroid and comet news and updates, follow @AsteroidWatch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AsteroidWatch Asteroids: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/main/index.html Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/Josh Handal/JPL/Ian J. O'Neill/Orbiter.ch Aerospace/Roland Berga. Best regards, Orbiter.ch Full article

[scifigeneration]

Newly discovered comet is likely interstellar visitor

A newly discovered comet has excited the astronomical community this week because it appears to have originated from outside the solar system. The object -- designated C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) -- was discovered on Aug. 30, 2019, by Gennady Borisov at the MARGO observatory in Nauchnij, Crimea. The official confirmation that comet C/2019 Q4 is an interstellar comet has not yet been made, but if it is interstellar, it would be only the second such object detected. The first, 'Oumuamua, was observed and confirmed in October 2017.

The new comet, C/2019 Q4, is still inbound toward the Sun, but it will remain farther than the orbit of Mars and will approach no closer to Earth than about 190 million miles (300 million kilometers).

After the initial detections of the comet, Scout system, which is located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, automatically flagged the object as possibly being interstellar. Davide Farnocchia of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at JPL worked with astronomers and the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Center in Frascati, Italy, to obtain additional observations. He then worked with the NASA-sponsored Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to estimate the comet's precise trajectory and determine whether it originated within our solar system or came from elsewhere in the galaxy.

The comet is currently 260 million miles (420 million kilometers) from the Sun and will reach its closest point, or perihelion, on Dec. 8, 2019, at a distance of about 190 million miles (300 million kilometers).

"The comet's current velocity is high, about 93,000 mph [150,000 kph], which is well above the typical velocities of objects orbiting the Sun at that distance," said Farnocchia. "The high velocity indicates not only that the object likely originated from outside our solar system, but also that it will leave and head back to interstellar space."

Currently on an inbound trajectory, comet C/2019 Q4 is heading toward the inner solar system and will enter it on Oct. 26 from above at roughly a 40-degree angle relative to the ecliptic plane. That's the plane in which the Earth and planets orbit the Sun.

C/2019 Q4 was established as being cometary due to its fuzzy appearance, which indicates that the object has a central icy body that is producing a surrounding cloud of dust and particles as it approaches the Sun and heats up. Its location in the sky (as seen from Earth) places it near the Sun -- an area of sky not usually scanned by the large ground-based asteroid surveys or NASA's asteroid-hunting NEOWISE spacecraft.

C/2019 Q4 can be seen with professional telescopes for months to come. "The object will peak in brightness in mid-December and continue to be observable with moderate-size telescopes until April 2020," said Farnocchia. "After that, it will only be observable with larger professional telescopes through October 2020."

Observations completed by Karen Meech and her team at the University of Hawaii indicate the comet nucleus is somewhere between 1.2 and 10 miles (2 and 16 kilometers) in diameter. Astronomers will continue collect observations to further characterize the comet's physical properties (size, rotation, etc.) and also continue to better identify its trajectory.

The Minor Planet Center is hosted by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and is a sub-node of NASA's Planetary Data System Small Bodies Node at the University of Maryland. JPL hosts the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. All are projects of NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program and elements of the agency's Planetary Defense Coordination Office within NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

More information about asteroids and near-Earth objects can be found at:

https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch

For more information about NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense

For asteroid and comet news and updates, follow AsteroidWatch on Twitter:

twitter.com/AsteroidWatch

[nelc]

This movie of asteroid 2014 JO25 was generated using radar data collected by NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California on April 19, 2017. When the observations began 2014 JO25 was 1.53 million miles (2.47 million kilometers) from Earth. By the time the observations concluded, the asteroid was 1.61 million miles (2.59 million kilometers) away. The asteroid has a contact binary structure -- two lobes connected by a neck-like region. The largest of the asteroid's two lobes is estimated to be 2,000 feet (610 meters) across. Asteroid 2014 JO25 approached to within 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers) of Earth on April 19. There are no future flybys by 2014 JO25 as close as this one for more than 400 years. The resolution of the radar images is about 25 feet (7.5 meters) per pixel. 154 images were used to create the movie shown. More information regarding asteroid 2014 JO25 can be found at https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news196.html and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch.