Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 10 submissions in the queue.

Surprise Flyby of Asteroid on January 9, 2017

posted by cmn32480 on Monday January 09 2017, @11:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the missed-it-by-that-much dept.

takyon writes:

[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

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Surprise Flyby of Asteroid on January 9, 2017 | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 15 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by driven on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:21AM

    by driven (6295) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:21AM (#451772)

    Nice - mainstream news reports potential killer asteroid _after_ it's flown by. Guess they don't want to panick the unwashed masses.
    I see that watchers.news [watchers.news] reported it yesterday.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:42AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:42AM (#451787)

      > Guess they don't want to panick the unwashed masses.

      Or... it literally wasn't on their radar. They aren't omniscient and once it was detected it was immediately known that the trajectory made it harmless.
      So not really big news.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:59AM

        by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:59AM (#451794)

        Don't worry, ISIS will claim it, Trump will tweet about the surveillance agency's incompetence, and then it will be the only topic on the news for 24 hours.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:27AM (#451778)

    thought to be between 36 and 111 feet

    Is it realistic to detect objects that small with enough warning time to evacuate the target zone?
     

    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:32AM (#451783)

      I believe there are some newer missions going up in the next 5 yeara that will improve our detection of smaller rocks.

      One of the currently running missions is WISE/NEO-WISE.

      - takyon

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Weasley on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:47AM

      by Weasley (6421) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:47AM (#451819)

      It's getting better as time goes on. We're discovering ever smaller and smaller asteroids as time goes on. We could be doing more though. Last time I was still paying attention to the minor planet scene (about 5 or 6 years ago) everyone was saying the two telescope projects LSST and Pan-Starrs were going to go a long way to finding these much smaller objects. LSST is still under construction I believe and Pan-Starrs has been having funding issues after only getting one of it's four telescopes operational.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:18AM (#451848)
      Based on the impact calculator [ic.ac.uk], assuming the maximum size, dense rock, and at typical velocities for asteroids, the impact energy would be 18.5 megatons, approximately the yield of the largest nuclear warheads used for the old Russian SS-18 ICBMs, the sort they’d have used to take out NORAD or some other heavily armoured targets. Pretty much enough to devastate a city were one so unfortunate to be in its path, not small potatoes but definitely not an extinction level event. Depends on the targeted area. If it were a major metropolis it’d probably be hard to evacuate everyone in time, but if it’s one of the sparsely-populated regions it might be doable.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @05:34AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @05:34AM (#451904)

        I wonder how much global cooling from the impact ejecta into the atmosphere would be. We'd almost certainly be observing some stunning sunsets/rises.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:12AM (#451800)

    It's known as a Trump. Is it still there?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @06:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @06:12AM (#451908)

    Hopefully, a really big one will hit the eastern US soon.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @11:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @11:45AM (#451986)

      A "really big one" will have major global effects.... Let's say, global warming won't be an issue any more.

    • (Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:55PM

      by DutchUncle (5370) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:55PM (#452100)

      Hey, there's a lot of us living here who aren't orange assholes.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday January 10 2017, @11:40AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday January 10 2017, @11:40AM (#451984) Homepage
    The webpage is a javascript monstrosity (seemed to have scripts from about 15 different sites), and I was unable to work out where the actual video was (neither could file2hd, nor youtube-dl).

    Flash? In 2017?
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves