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Subscribe to RSSScientists will be keeping an eye on asteroid 2012 DA14 - seen here in an eerie animation from Analytical Graphics Inc. - when it comes within 17,200 miles of Earth on Feb. 15. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
When the asteroid known as 2012 DA14 zooms within 17,200 miles of our planet on Friday, it'll mark the closest approach by a massive space rock in more than a century (although the meteor that flared through the skies over Russia's Chelyabinsk region early Friday injured hundreds of people, it is only a fragment of the size of these monsters). Fortunately, the 150-foot-wide object will pose absolutely no risk to Earth — but over the course of millennia, other asteroids have literally rocked our world.
As safe as Friday's encounter will be, it's a reminder that Earth has been vulnerable to cosmic impacts in the past, and will continue to be in the future. That's why NASA and other agencies are spending millions of dollars to detect more of the estimated 1 million near-Earth objects that could be as threatening as 2012 DA14.
"We are looking at all kinds of partnership possibilities, across universities, space institutions and with the Air Force," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near-Earth Object Observations Program at NASA Headquarters. This week, Johnson and other experts are gathering at a U.N.-sponsored conference in Vienna to discuss the creation of an international asteroid warning network.
Vienna is actually one of the places where 2012 DA14 can be seen in the night sky on Friday — not with the naked eye, but with binoculars or a small telescope. The best viewing opportunities will be available in Asia, Australia and Europe. (Follow the instructions at the bottom of this article to find out if it'll be visible from your location.)
The closest approach comes at 2:44 p.m. ET, when the asteroid will be zooming past at a speed of almost 17,500 mph, directly above the eastern Indian Ocean. It'll come 5,000 miles within the ring of communications satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit, but those satellites are so widely distributed that experts say the chance of a collision is extremely remote.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
A NASA chart shows how asteroid 2012 DA14 will be deflected by Earth's gravitational field. Experts say the space rock will be put into a safer orbit after this week's encounter.
If 2012 DA14 were on a collision course, the shock of its rapid fall through Earth's atmosphere would cause it to explode, unleashing the power of a 2.4-megaton atomic bomb. In the worst-case scenario, that'd be enough energy to destroy an entire city. A similar cosmic blast in 1908 laid waste to 820 square miles of Siberian forest in the Tunguska region.
It's possible that other such blasts have occurred over the course of Earth's history without being recorded. Based on a statistical analysis, NASA estimates that asteroids the size of 2012 DA14 strike Earth every 1,200 years or so. The only reason we know about this encounter is because the capabilities for tracking near-Earth objects have improved so much in recent years.
A Spanish observation team discovered 2012 DA14 just last year during a more distant flyby. "We probably would not have found DA14 10 years ago," said Don Yeomans, the head of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Now that they know it's there, astronomers will be monitoring the asteroid with optical and radio telescopes, including the Arecibo Observatory's 1,000-foot-wide dish in Puerto Rico and NASA's Goldstone radio antenna in California.
Radar observations could provide insights into the space rock's shape and spin, while an analysis of the optical data could reveal what 2012 DA14 is made of. Think of Friday's encounter as a practice run for identifying and tracking the unknown asteroids that actually could threaten us in the years to come — and an incentive to figure out ways to deflect them in case we have to.
To get a better sense of how 2012 DA14 rates, here are a dozen more hits and misses involving near-Earth objects:
65 million B.C.: The most infamous asteroid is the 6-mile-wide rock that smashed into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago, sparking the global catastrophe that did in the dinosaurs. Experts say the explosion released as much energy as 100 trillion tons of TNT.
35 million B.C.: Geologists say a roughly kilometer-wide (0.6-mile-wide) asteroid or comet struck America's Eastern Seaboard millions of years ago, contributing to the formation of Chesapeake Bay and creating a biological crisis. Studies have shown that microbes deep underground in the blast zone are still adjusting to the ancient shock.
NASA
Barringer Impact Crater in Arizona — also known as Meteor Crater — is captured in this image taken in 1995 by space shuttle astronauts.
50,000 B.C.: A 150-foot-wide iron-nickel meteorite hits Arizona, creating the 0.75-mile-wide Meteor Crater. Asteroid 2012 DA14 is thought to be the same size as this meteorite, but made of less dense stuff that would break up before it hits the ground.
1490: Chinese accounts tell of a meteor shower during which "stones fell like rain" on the Qingyang (Ch'ing-Yang) district of Shaanxi Province (now Gansu Province), killing as many as 10,000 people. Experts are doubtful about the reported death toll, but they don't doubt that a dramatic event occurred, perhaps involving the breakup of an asteroid.
1908: The Tunguska event in Siberia, which flattened millions of trees, is thought to have been caused by an asteroid similar to 2012 DA14 in size and composition. Tunguska has become a watchword for asteroid activists. "The greatest danger from an asteroid strike is from the ones we haven't yet found," former NASA astronaut Ed Lu, chairman and CEO of the B612 Foundation, told NBC News. "Of the asteroids larger than the one that struck Tunguska in 1908, we know less than 1 percent."
1937: Asteroid Hermes is observed to miss Earth by a distance of just 460,000 miles. Decades later, scientists found out that Hermes occasionally comes even closer to Earth, and in fact consists of two space rocks flying in tandem. Each of the objects is thought to be about 1,300 feet (400 meters) wide.
1972: The Great Daylight Fireball is witnessed blazing over the Rocky Mountains from the U.S. Southwest to Canada. Scientists say it was an Earth-grazing meteoroid that passed within 35 miles (57 kilometers) of Earth’s surface.
Footage shows the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972.
1997: Astronomers report that a mile-wide asteroid known as 1997 XF11 had a chance of hitting Earth in 2028. The report touched off a media tempest, but further observations reduced the chance of collision to zero. The news came amid a spate of asteroid disaster flicks, including "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon" as well as the TV miniseries "Asteroid."
2004: An 885-foot-wide asteroid known as 2004 MN4, later named Apophis, is initially given a 1-in-40 chance of hitting Earth in 2029. That collision risk was ruled out relatively quickly, but it took years longer to analyze the risk posed by a later encounter in 2036. Just last month, astronomers announced that Apophis will pose no threat to Earth in the foreseeable future.
2008: Asteroid 2008 TC3 explodes during atmospheric entry above Sudan’s Nubian Desert. The event marked the first time that a near-Earth object’s impact was successfully predicted, several hours in advance. 2008 TC3 was 2 to 5 meters wide, and broke up into fragments that were later recovered from the desert.
2011: Asteroid 2011 CQ1 makes the closest-ever flyby of Earth for a cataloged asteroid, passing within 3,400 miles of Earth’s surface. The asteroid was discovered just 16 hours before its super-close encounter, but because it's only a meter wide, it would have burned up in the atmosphere if it had been on a direct course.
2011: An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier, 2005 YU55, sails past Earth at a distance of 198,000 miles, which is closer than the orbit of the moon. Earthlings marked the asteroid's passage with a barrage of picture-taking.
More about the asteroid encounter:
- Would-be miners say asteroid is worth $195 billion
- Hooray! Earth will kick asteroid into a safer orbit
- Flash interactive: Close encounters of the asteroid kind
Astronomers say asteroid 2012 DA14 won't be visible to the naked eye, but it is possible to watch it pass by through binoculars or a small telescope — if you know where and when to look. The Heavens-Above website can help you get a fix on the fast-moving rock. First, go to the website's location database and find the nearest city. Click on the link for that city. Then, click on over to the 2012 DA14 sky chart and look for the asteroid's track, with notations that indicate observation times. If you don't see the asteroid's track, you won't be able to see the asteroid. In some cases, the track is shown during daylight hours — which would generally rule out visual observations.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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too bad we can't attach some type of sensor to one of these as it passes. get all types of info from its trip through our solar system without launching ten space rockets. would only have to launch one.
Who says it isn't a spaceship for a giant alien invasion!
Dr. Jim Hansen, Chief Scientist of NASA (Space Administration) admonishes that human activities (overpopulation - growing economies ) are expelling CO2 at an alarming rate equivalent a giant asteroid.
"our planet is adding CO2 to the earth's atmosphere gaining heat equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima A bombs per day, 365 days a year, and growing "
"Imagine a giant asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. That is the equivalent of what we face now [with climate change],
Yet we dither taking no action to avoid the asteroid ” (James Hansen) ( video seen in internet TED TALKS presents it)
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html
G Kaplan, President
www.lifewatchgroup.org
Thank you, Dr. Gabriela Kaplan, MD! The human (and support animal) population explosion here on Earth are actually the driving force behind most of detrimental change which is going on in our precious emerging human world. Runaway global warming is actually one type of global Extinction Level Event (E.L.E.), which (unfortunately) is occurring so slowly that mankind (so far) is collectively very much like that proverbial science experiment where that poor frog is gradually cooked to death in a slowly heated pot of boiling water, because it doesn't have enough common sense to jump out (actually there are people in our world who are hoping to 'jump out' right now by developing the deep space capability to travel to other "comfort zone" worlds). The people who are most opposed to population control here on Earth are the (sadly misled) religious crowd, who have been told (by outside offensive totalitarian ETs (who repeatedly masqueraded as Divinity in the process of covertly installing all three of these terminal religious belief systems known as the Abrahamic religions) to "multiply and fill the Earth". Unfortunately, these potentially fatally infected religious people (who are infected by the ET designed and installed Human Software Viruses (HSVs) known as the Abrahamic religions, which are all key components of a larger ET designed and installed PWMD, or Program Weapon of Mass Destruction) have been seduced and deceived into thinking that the program "End of our World" must come (in the form of the Christian Apocalypse or World War III), if they are ever to see the eventual return of their beloved "Savior and Redeemer" King Jesus, in order to set up his global totalitarian theocratic kingdom over our entire world from the city of Jerusalem, so he can perpetually rule and reign our emerging human world as the supreme demigod dictator known as the Christ or Messiah (or Mahdi, whichever the case may be). There is actually no greater recipe for (the program "End Time") global disaster than this, which is actually the "method to the madness" behind the long standing scheme of these outside offensive totalitarian ETs, who are hoping to eventually use their (now) eminent domain rights of military intervention in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy, to eventually steal and annex our extremely valuable celestial real estate, after first taking over our emerging human world militarily as the returning (militant) Christ or Messiah, on the heels of the future program Christian Apocalypse or World War III. These outside offensive totalitarian ETs (a cultural singularity under the control of an advanced but delusional ET/AI system) were forced to take this covert approach at territorial conquest in our Milky Way galaxy, because there are Free Galaxy powers which reside elsewhere in our Milky Way galaxy, who currently stand in the way of overt military conquest on a stellar level. I know all of this because I personally lived at Wright Patterson Air Force base from 1951 to 1953, while my grandfather (Colonel Charles Faulkner Carter) was second in command there, and he was personally involved in the background investigation into the Roswell Incident of 1947. These same outside offensive totalitarian ETs overflew Washington, DC for several weeks during 1952, in order to demand the return of the Roswell crash remains. They chose the middle of the Korean War as the most opportune time to do this, since we had our hands full militarily with the Soviets, the Red Chinese and the North Koreans. The real "Gospel" or "Good News" is that mankind potentially has countless millions (even billions) of years of growth, development and expansion, so long as we don't fall for these ET designed and installed program terminal religious "End Time" belief systems known as the Abrahamic belief systems.
(I am also former U.S. Special Forces, 6th Group (Psyops) & 5th Group, top "Go Team" Ft. Bragg, N.C., ETS from active duty 1972. Please know ahead of time that I would NOT lie about any of this !!!) - Rick Carter
((There is so much more to all of this that it would fill a small library, most of which currently resides in the hands of the U.S. government. I can also tell everyone a WHOLE LOT more, too!))
I would really so very much like to wash my hands of all of this, and never touch it with a 100 ft. pole again, but the U.S. government really needs to PUBLICLY take this grave issue over first, and finally tell the human race "The Truth". Otherwise the entire human race stands to eventually become extinct at the hands of these outside offensive totalitarian ETs, who were reconning our post WWII nuclear facilities in the western and southwestern United States back in 1947, on the heels of WWII. They were conducting a baseline study of our emerging WMD capability in order to determine the best timing for the future Christian Apocalypse or World War III, because WMDs have a very key role to play in the ultimate success of the PWMD, when it comes to justifying their eventual military intervention into our emerging human world, under the guise of the returning Christ or Messiah. They were particularly interested in the Roswell, N.M. area, because the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) was located there, and the 509th bomber group was based at RAAF, and they were the only bomber group in the entire world authorized at the time to carry nuclear weapons. - Rick Carter
Mr Carter,
With all due respect sir, your rant smacks of schizoid personality disorder. Not being able to prove or disprove what you say, I'll remain "agnostic" on this matter since I suppose all of what you say is technically possible, albeit unlikely. Best of luck to you.
Need to start developing counter measure technology that will help with this stuff. Inevitable we will be hit again at some point. Would be nice to not suffer the dinosaurs fate We are smarter than them right? I said, right?
Just be glad that it won't hit the North Pole or close to the North Pole.
Such a meteor impact would dislodge a lot of the glacial ice frozen for millions of years that would cause the oceans to rise which would cause environmental disasters worldwide.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?707l9mh73n5tusp
Too bad there wasn't more warning, all of the "Doomsday" folks could have had books in the stores prophesying the "End." It would have made good reading while we sat and waited for the "End."
OK, so it will miss Earth, but will the asteroid's trajectory intersect the orbital path of Earth? In other words, is it projected to pass in front of, or behind the earth's orbit? Or, will it pass to the left or right side of our orbit?
Or, will the asteroid's trajectory be 17,200 miles outside our orbital path at it's closest point above the Indian Ocean where it will be travelling at 17,500mph? The news article says, "The closest approach comes at 2:44 p.m. ET, when the asteroid will be zooming past at a speed of almost 17,500 mph, directly above the eastern Indian Ocean"
Will the asteroid be travelling towards earth or at an angle? The 2D graphic in the article is unclear, a 3D graphic would have made this clearer.
The Earth's speed is 67,000 mph. So, it seems to me that a small math error could mean we've got a minor 'fender bender' coming tomorrow.
Thank you, "Foreigner", you finally explained it to me, why this asteroid is (probably) not going to insert itself into Earth orbit, in spite of the fact that it is traveling (relatively speaking) at orbital speed. I forgot to take into account the (combined) orbital speed of the Earth around the Sun (not to mention the combined speed of the solar system around our galaxy, and maybe even the speed of our entire galaxy through the Universe). I could kick myself in the "arse" for my shrinking consciousness (old age setting in), since I rarely have to defer to anyone on these issues! - RC
(In case you all can't tell, I am really being facetious. Please note that I didn't say "relative" to what, because I am still waiting to hear that from them. The plea of "old age" is just to keep the ladies off my "arse" on Valentine's Day. Ha, ha!) - RC
We should be gravely concerned about even some minor asteroids impacting on or near a nuclear power plant facility. It only takes 2 or 3 reactors melting down (and exploding upwards) at one of these power plants to destroy our entire ecosystem within months or years. We almost saw this in Fukushima after the tsunami a couple years ago. Once that happens, a chain reaction of increased radiation would most certainly occur at one of the other 250 nuclear power plants worldwide since humans would be incapable of maintaining these facilities while life on the planet dies. Sad how no one considered the significant dangers of nuclear power before we imposed so many of them around the world. We did not even consider the impact of ice ages that occur every 110,000 years or so on these nuclear facilities, and subsequently, planet life.
Sadder how people are so terrified of such a potentially useful technology as nuclear power that they blow the risks of even the most catastrophic meltdowns so far out of proportion and start worrying that every single possible event, no matter how unlikely, might unsettle nuclear reactors. It's impossible for even a dozen reactors, all melting down in the worst way, to destroy the entire planet's ecosystem. It can't happen. There isn't enough radiation in those things. And out of all the scenarios that could damage one, if the one you're worrying about is "inexplicably accurate asteroid strike" even warrants a mention, then that reactor must be in a really good spot.
egh, duplicate post deletion here...
REPRINT (minus typos). Are you both listening, Dr. Kaplan and Dr. Hansen?
"Thank you, Dr. Gabriela Kaplan, MD! The human (and support animal) population explosion here on Earth are actually the driving force behind most of detrimental change which is going on in our precious emerging human world. Runaway global warming is actually one type of global Extinction Level Event (E.L.E.), which (unfortunately?) is occurring so slowly that mankind (so far) is collectively very much like that proverbial science experiment where that poor frog is gradually cooked to death in a slowly heated pot of boiling water, because it doesn't have enough common sense to jump out (actually there are people in our world who are hoping to 'jump out' right now by developing the deep space capability to travel to other "comfort zone" worlds). The people who are most opposed to population control here on Earth are the (sadly misled) religious crowd, who were commanded (by outside offensive totalitarian ETs, who repeatedly masqueraded as Divinity in the process of covertly installing all three of these terminal religious belief systems known as the Abrahamic religions into our world) to "multiply and fill the Earth". Unfortunately, these potential terminally infected religious people (who are infected by these ET designed and installed Human Software Viruses (HSVs) known as the Abrahamic religions, which are all key components of a larger ET designed and installed PWMD, or Program Weapon of Mass Destruction) have been seduced and deceived into thinking that the program "end of our World" must come soon (in the form of the Christian Apocalypse or World War III), if they are ever to see the eventual return of their beloved "Savior and Redeemer" King Jesus, in order to set up his global totalitarian theocratic kingdom over our entire world from the city of Jerusalem, so he can perpetually rule and reign over our emerging human world as the supreme demigod dictator known as the Christ or Messiah (or Mahdi, whichever the case may be). There is actually no greater recipe for global disaster than this, which is actually the "method to the madness" behind the long standing scheme of these outside offensive totalitarian ETs, who are hoping to eventually use their (now) eminent domain rights of military intervention in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy, to eventually steal and annex our extremely valuable celestial real estate, after first taking over our emerging human world militarily as the returning (militant) Christ or Messiah, on the heels of the future program Christian Apocalypse or World War III. These outside offensive totalitarian ETs (a cultural singularity under the control of an advanced but delusional ET/AI system) are trying to thwart our human emergence as a full fledged member of our greater galactic community, and they were forced to take this covert approach at territorial conquest in our Milky Way galaxy, because there are Free Galaxy powers which reside elsewhere in our Milky Way galaxy, who currently stand in the way of overt military conquest on a stellar level. I know all of this because I personally lived at Wright Patterson Air Force base from 1951 to 1953, while my grandfather (Colonel Charles Faulkner Carter) was second in command there, and he was personally involved in the background investigation into the Roswell Incident of 1947. These same outside offensive totalitarian ETs overflew Washington, DC for several weeks during 1952, in order to demand the return of the Roswell crash remains. They chose the middle of the Korean War as the most opportune time to do this, since we had our hands full militarily with the Soviets, the Red Chinese and the North Koreans. The real "Gospel" or "Good News" is that mankind potentially has countless millions (even billions) of years of growth, development and expansion, so long as we don't fall for these ET designed and installed program terminal religious "End Time" belief systems known as the Abrahamic religions."
"(I am also former U.S. Special Forces, 6th Group (Psyops) & 5th Group, top "Go Team" Ft. Bragg, N.C., ETS from active duty 1972. Please know ahead of time that I would NOT lie about any of this !!!)" - Rick Carter
The AP is reporting that an asteroid just hit in the mountains of Russia...I wonder if it was this one???
Certainly not. However it may have been a small sized fragment that was traveling near by it. If it is, it will be interesting.
If the scientific community was thinking, they would attach a probe to that thing, and use it like a deep space satellite. Hitch a ride on it basically. Its free transportation around the solar system and beyond.
Did you even read the article? This "thing" exploded over Russia, I don't know but it seems somewhat wasteful to me to spend the time and money to attach a probe to something that shortly thereafter goes kaboom!
It is said on the website webodysseum that the sound is not due to the meteorite hitting the ground, but when it hits the atmosphere:
Which explains the long delay between the event and the sound
Just wondering if this mornings event in Russia was a prelude to the "near miss" we are going to have? I believe in comets that there are "rocks" that go ahead of it is this also true for asteroids? Please don't call me a noob just trying to learn more about them.
Doesn't anyone find it strange that this asteroid is coming so close, but is guaranteed by scientist that it will miss, yet Russia gets hit yesterday by a low level meteor fireball that creates an airborne explosion injurying hundreds (reminiscent of Tunguska Meteor explosion over Siberia in 1908) . Is it possible that a piece broke off the asteroid or that there could have been more than one traveling the same flight path.
Just wondering...
I been wondering that myself as well, its just so ironic
Emanate danger of an asteroid? Does this mean we do not have to pay China back that $16 Trillion?
NASA is saying the asteroid that hit Russia is not related. That's a bunch of balarkey.
Of course they are.
Remember Shoemaker nine and all those sequential hits on Jupiter?
Often these asteroids are a result of prior collisions and often smaller pieces are in step with the larger one in an orbit following collisions of the main piece millions or thousands or even billion of years ago.
So EARTH is not out of danger yet there could very well be more in this 'swarm' of meteors linked by gravity to the larger one.
NASA is really dumber than I thought possible.
And you know NASA is lying because... well, because you assume you know better than the scientists involved and probably jump at the chance to assume conspiracy.
If the two were related, why would astronomists bother to hide it? To save themselves the embarrassment of having to explain that while the primary asteroid will miss, some smaller surrounding rocks will enter the atmosphere (and then burn up because they're not big enough to survive the trip to the ground)? You think very little of these people, and far too much of yourself.
What about landing a probe with sensors and cameras on one of these near miss/hit asteroid ( or a comet with a long cycle orbit). It seems like it would be an economical way of studying deep into the solar system, by piggy backing an asteroid or a comet. If we could do it to a few with known orbits, couldn't we have a satellite system riding on an asteroid or comet for free, studying and monitoring the outer solar system?
How feasible is this idea?
I dunno man, but it seems challenging to me to aim a projectile at a speeding asteroid with the intention of the payload surviving.
Still, I'm no space engineer. There are people looking to land on asteroids (albeit ones that aren't flying by us), so there must be some people looking into it.
The logistics of actually landing something on an asteroid aside, plse be aware that space is really, really big and mostly empty. So any sensors and cameras on an asteroid or comet are gonna observe a whole lotta nothing.
I understand that this meteor is the exact size of the one that just hit Russia and nobody saw that one coming?
No it isn't. The one that buzzed Russia was much, much smaller.
Ironically, "ranks among Earth's biggest hits" is pronounced the same as "ranks among Earth's biggest tits".
No it isn't, but good luck with your continuing "English as a Second Language" education.
A recently published book called "Comets and the Horns of Moses" does a great job of explaining the history of comets and asteroids and their interaction with our planet. The book also provides evidence that major impact events are by no means "rare" in human history. It's a 'must read' for those who want to get up to speed on this increasingly important topic. Your life, or the life of a loved one, could depend on it!
Fireball sightings have increased by a factor of 4.5 (450%) since 2005 - the curve looks exponential. And now this Tunguska-like event. It has been shown that the earth goes through periodic bombardment by comets and their debris fields. These have been linked to the collapse of historic civilizations.