NASA has announced that two small asteroids between 20 and 65 feet in diameter well pass between the Earth in the Moon on Wednesday. For those with medium sized telescopes, you should be able to track the asteroids across the night sky. From NASA:
The Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Ariz., discovered both objects on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 5, during their routine monitoring of the skies. The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., first received the observations Sunday morning, determined preliminary orbits and concluded that both objects would pass within the distance of the moon about three days after their discovery.
Near-Earth asteroid 2010 RX30 is estimated to be 32 to 65 feet (10 to 20 meters) in size and will pass within 0.6 lunar distances of Earth (about 154,000 miles, or 248,000 kilometers) at 2:51 a.m. PDT (5:51 a.m. EDT) Wednesday. The second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 20-46 feet (6 to 14 meters) in size, will pass within 0.2 lunar distances (about 49,088 miles or 79,000 kilometers) a few hours later at 2:12 p.m. PDT (5:12 pm EDT).
Now, this is not as unusual as it may sound. Small asteroids, on the order of about 10 meters, pass between the Earth and Moon nearly every day. And one in ten actually reaches the Earth's surface. These are special in that they are slightly larger than normal asteroids from this population, and they were discovered several days before their pass, meaning you get the opportunity to track them yourself. So, be sure to be looking toward the skies, as you might catch a glimpse of some near-Earth objects.
Comments
From NASA:
Two asteroids discovered on Sunday, 09-05-10, by the “Catalina Sky Survey” near Tucson.
They will pass within the orbit of the moon: one very close to the earth.
Sunday, 09-05-10: Weekend, no one at work in Houston.
Monday, 09-06-10: Labor Day Holiday (oops, no one available or on duty, “Houston, Tucson calling….Hello, Houston: We have a problem…Hello
Houston! We have a problem!!” Recording: “Please call back during regular business hours….”)
Tuesday, 09-07-10: Press Release (Media Advisory): scientists will be available today and tomorrow by satellite to answer questions.
I suppose this will be from their underground bunker on Wednesday, just in case they have accidentally miscalculated the trajectories.
(Well, there’s the lens on the Hubble telescope. Then there’s the mission to Mars where somebody failed to change metric to English—or was it the other way around—anyway, oops–it crashed into Mars.)
Meanwhile, the rest of us might see something in the press later on Wednesday:
That is if we are not dead because we weren’t in an underground bunker because no one got the word out, what with Labor Day being in there in the middle….oops again.
Think about it…
if for some reason robert bauer is able to see this message and he is the same robert bauer that disappeared from wj I would the appreciate it he would leave another comment explaining why he is gone or if something bad happened because I don’t believe what I was told by the administration