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posted by martyb on Friday October 13 2017, @08:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the near-miss-or-near-hit? dept.

2012 TC4 has passed by Earth:

2012 TC4 is estimated to be 45 to 100 feet (15 to 30 meters) in size. Orbit prediction experts say the asteroid poses no risk of impact with Earth. Nonetheless, its close approach to Earth is an opportunity to test the ability of a growing global observing network to communicate and coordinate their optical and radar observations in a real scenario.

This asteroid was discovered by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) on Hawaii back in 2012. Pan-STARRS conducts a near-Earth object (NEO) survey funded by NASA's NEO Observations Program, a key element of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. However, 2012 TC4 traveled out of the range of asteroid-tracking telescopes shortly after it was discovered.

Based on the observations they were able to make in 2012, asteroid trackers predicted that it should come back into view in the fall of 2017. Observers with the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory were the first to recapture 2012 TC4, in late July 2017, using one of their large 8-meter aperture telescopes. Since then, observers around the world have been tracking the object as it approaches Earth and reporting their observations to the Minor Planet Center.

This "test" of what has become a global asteroid-impact early-warning system is a volunteer project, conceived and organized by NASA-funded asteroid observers and supported by the NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). As explained by Michael Kelley, program scientist and NASA PDCO lead for the TC4 observation campaign, "Asteroid trackers are using this flyby to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking network, assessing our capability to work together in response to finding a potential real asteroid-impact threat."

Previously: NASA Formalizes Planetary Defense Coordination Office to Track Asteroids
NASA and FEMA Conduct Asteroid Threat Response Exercise
Surprise Flyby of Asteroid on January 9, 2017
NASA to Redirect an Asteroid's Moon With Kinetic Impact
Asteroid 2012 TC4 Will Pass Close to Earth on October 12th
4.4 Kilometer Asteroid Safely Passes by Earth (two moons discovered)


Original Submission

Related Stories

NASA Formalizes Planetary Defense Coordination Office to Track Asteroids 14 comments

NASA has launched a Planetary Defense Coordination Office to reorganize its approach to asteroid detection and response:

NASA has formalized its ongoing program for detecting and tracking near-Earth objects (NEOs) as the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). The office remains within NASA's Planetary Science Division, in the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The office will be responsible for supervision of all NASA-funded projects to find and characterize asteroids and comets that pass near Earth's orbit around the sun. It will also take a leading role in coordinating interagency and intergovernmental efforts in response to any potential impact threats.

More than 13,500 near-Earth objects of all sizes have been discovered to date -- more than 95 percent of them since NASA-funded surveys began in 1998. About 1,500 NEOs are now detected each year.

"Asteroid detection, tracking and defense of our planet is something that NASA, its interagency partners, and the global community take very seriously," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "While there are no known impact threats at this time, the 2013 Chelyabinsk super-fireball and the recent 'Halloween Asteroid' close approach remind us of why we need to remain vigilant and keep our eyes to the sky."

NASA has been engaged in worldwide planning for planetary defense for some time, and this office will improve and expand on those efforts, working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies and departments.

The move follows a 2014 audit of NASA's asteroid detection activities that found a lack of "oversight, objectives, and established milestones".


Original Submission

NASA and FEMA Conduct Asteroid Threat Response Exercise 19 comments

There's no need to panic; NASA and FEMA have a plan to respond to a potential asteroid collision:

It's a scary scenario: an asteroid headed for Earth, just four years away from slamming into our home planet. It may be too short a span to plan an asteroid-deflection mission, but it's long enough to present very different challenges from those of a more typical crisis, like a hurricane or earthquake.

NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came together Oct. 25 to plan a response to such a hypothetical event. In a "tabletop exercise," a kind of ongoing simulation, the two agencies tested how they would work together to evaluate the threat, prevent panic and protect as many people as possible from the deadly collision.

"It's not a matter of if, but when, we will deal with such a situation," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's Science Mission Directorate's new associate administrator, said in a statement. "But unlike any other time in our history, we now have the ability to respond to an impact threat through continued observations, predictions, response planning and mitigation."

Also at JPL.


Original Submission

Surprise Flyby of Asteroid on January 9, 2017 15 comments

[Time sensitive but remove breaking news nexus]

An asteroid with the potential to harm thousands of Earthlings was detected just two days before it passed by Earth:

A smallish asteroid zoomed past Earth this morning (Jan. 9), just two days after scientists first spotted the space rock. The asteroid, known as 2017 AG13, flew by our planet at just half the distance from Earth to the moon today at 7:47 a.m. EST (1247 GMT). (On average, the moon lies about 239,000 miles, or 385,000 kilometers, from Earth.) You can learn more about today's flyby in this video of asteroid 2017 AG13 from Slooh.com, which includes details on the space rock from Slooh Community Observatory astronomer Eric Edelman.

2017 AG13 is thought to be between 36 and 111 feet (11 to 34 meters) wide, according to astronomers at the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For perspective, the object that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013, injuring more than 1,000 people, was thought to be about 65 feet (20 m) wide.

See also: NASA Formalizes Planetary Defense Coordination Office to Track Asteroids
NASA and FEMA Conduct Asteroid Threat Response Exercise
NASA Office to Coordinate Asteroid Detection, Hazard Mitigation


Original Submission

NASA to Redirect an Asteroid's Moon With Kinetic Impact 11 comments

NASA will impact a small asteroid with a spacecraft and measure changes in its orbit around a larger asteroid:

The first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defense -- the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) -- is moving from concept development to preliminary design phase, following NASA's approval on June 23.

"DART would be NASA's first mission to demonstrate what's known as the kinetic impactor technique -- striking the asteroid to shift its orbit -- to defend against a potential future asteroid impact," said Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This approval step advances the project toward an historic test with a non-threatening small asteroid."

While current law directs the development of the DART mission, DART is not identified as a specific budget item in the Administration's Fiscal Year 2018 budget.

The target for DART is an asteroid that will have a distant approach to Earth in October 2022, and then again in 2024. The asteroid is called Didymos -- Greek for "twin" -- because it's an asteroid binary system that consists of two bodies: Didymos A, about one-half mile (780 meters) in size, and a smaller asteroid orbiting it called Didymos B, about 530 feet (160 meters) in size. DART would impact only the smaller of the two bodies, Didymos B.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/65803_Didymos

Related: https://www.nas.nasa.gov/publications/articles/feature_asteroid_simulations.html


Original Submission

Asteroid 2012 TC4 Will Pass Close to Earth on October 12th 14 comments

2012 TC4 will pass Earth well within the Moon's orbit a month from now, but not nearly as close as previously estimated:

Mark your calendar for Oct. 12. That's when asteroid 2012 TC4 will slip past Earth at an expected distance of around 27,300 miles (44,000 kilometers). The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile recently caught sight of the asteroid, which could be up to 100 feet (30 meters) in size.

NASA is leading a coordinated international campaign to observe TC4. In July, NASA suggested the asteroid could squeeze in as close as 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers), but the European Space Agency's latest estimates give us more breathing room.

Geostationary equatorial orbit (GEO) is at about 35,786 km above mean sea level.

Also at Phys.org (AFP).


Original Submission

4.4 Kilometer Asteroid Safely Passes by Earth 10 comments

A large asteroid, 3122 Florence, has passed by Earth at a distance of around 7 million kilometers (about 0.047237 AU):

Asteroid Florence, a large near-Earth asteroid, will pass safely by Earth on Sept. 1, 2017, at a distance of about 4.4 million miles, (7.0 million kilometers, or about 18 Earth-Moon distances). Florence is among the largest near-Earth asteroids that are several miles in size; measurements from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and NEOWISE mission indicate it's about 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) in size.

"While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began."

This relatively close encounter provides an opportunity for scientists to study this asteroid up close. Florence is expected to be an excellent target for ground-based radar observations. Radar imaging is planned at NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar in California and at the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The resulting radar images will show the real size of Florence and also could reveal surface details as small as about 30 feet (10 meters).

All that money just whizzing by.

Also at Space.com and BBC.


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @06:49PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 13 2017, @06:49PM (#581938)

    Just wondering if there has ever been a collision that was predicted in advance, or whether scientists can say when such a successful prediction might first occur?

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday October 13 2017, @07:47PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday October 13 2017, @07:47PM (#581975) Journal

      I looked at this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_meteor_air_bursts [wikipedia.org]

      Apparently, the first such detection occurred on Oct. 7, 2008. 2008 TC3 [wikipedia.org], with a 4.1 meter diameter.

      Compare to the Chelyabinsk meteor [wikipedia.org]. Had an estimated 20 meter diameter, similar in size to 2012 TC4. Completely undetected until impact event in 2013.

      Larger objects are easier to spot so their impacts could be predicted some time in advance. But you'll notice that the estimates aren't exact until the object comes much closer to passing Earth. If you look at the previous 2012 TC4 story, in July they thought it would pass 6,800 km above Earth, but by August that was changed to 44,000 km. Then it zipped by yesterday at a distance of 50,151 km ± 1.052 km.

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      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
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