Dawn in the Asteroid Belt

[onedomino]

On Thursday, the JPL spacecraft “Dawn’ launches for the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. In these days of discord, it is good to realize that we are still making many new discoveries. We are trying to find out new information about the Universe because we have confidence that new knowledge will make us more than we are now. Dawn will visit Ceres and Vesta. Here’s a couple of our best current photos of these members of our solar system:

A Hubble Space Telescope view of Texas-sized Ceres. http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=3478

A Hubble photo of Vesta from a distance of 110 million miles. Vesta is only 330 miles in diameter, but it has a 285 mile wide crater. http://library.thinkquest.org/18652/asteroid.html

 

[Shogun]

nice...


keep up the astronomy postings!

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd says, "Yea - an' dey thought dat one dat hit Russia was gonna be a fly-by...

Dark, massive asteroid to fly by Earth on May 31
May 17, 2013, It's 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby.

Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest pass to Earth on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. PDT. Scientists are not sure where this unusually large space rock, which was discovered 15 years ago, originated from. But the mysterious sooty substance on its surface could indicate it may be the result of a comet that flew too close to the sun, said Amy Mainzer, who tracks near-Earth objects at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. It might also have leaked out of the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, she said.

We will know more after the asteroid zips closer to Earth and scientists using the Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif., and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico can get a better look at it. Astronomers at both observatories plan to track it closely from May 30 to June 9, according to a JPL release.

The orbit of asteroid 1998 QE2.

At its closest approach the asteroid will still be 3.6 million miles from our planet (about 15 times the distance between the Earth and the moon), but it will be close enough for these powerful radar antennas to see features as small as 12 feet across. "With radar we can transform an object from a point of light into a small world with its own characteristics," Lance Benner, JPL's principal investigator for Goldstone radar observations, said in a statement. There is no chance that asteroid 1998 QE2 could collide with Earth this go-around, and its next close approach won't be until 2119.

Still, Mainzer said the size of the asteroid, and its potential for mass destruction, should remind us that there are some scary things flying around in space. "This is a really big asteroid, similar in size to the one that killed off the dinosaurs, and it's getting very close to us," she said. "Fortunately we've been tracking its orbit very carefully so we know with great certainty it won't hit us. "We don't need to panic, but we do need to pay attention," she said.

Source

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - dem space aliens done drawed a bead on us...

There's only a 1 in 48,000 chance the Earth could be destroyed in 2032
10/18/2013 ~ NASA says a big asteroid that whizzed by Earth last month unnoticed is probably nothing to worry about when it returns much closer in 19 years.

NASA Near-Earth Object program manager Donald Yeomans said there is a 1 in 48,000 chance that the 1,300-foot asteroid will hit Earth when it comes back on Aug. 26, 2032.

A meteorite contrail from February 2013 is seen over the Ural Mountains of Russia.

The asteroid called 2013 TV135 was discovered Oct. 8, nearly a month after it came within 4.2 million miles of Earth. Yeomans said as astronomers observe and track it better, they will likely calculate that it has no chance of hitting Earth.

Although big, the asteroid is considerably smaller than the type that caused the dinosaur extinction. NASA posted a “reality check” about the asteroid in response to some media reports.

There's only a 1 in 48,000 chance the Earth could be destroyed in 2032 - Mendocino Beacon

 

[waltky]

possum in his hidy hole inna backyard, Granny says, "Dat's right - we all gonna die!...

END OF THE WORLD: Empire State-sized asteroid is Earth-bound and NASA says we’re helpless
16 Mar.`18 - AN ASTEROID which is bigger than five football fields is on a collision course with Earth and there are no systems to protect us from the life-ending space rock.

The huge asteroid, known as Bennu, has a massive diameter of more than 500 metres, and is roughly the height of the Empire State Building. Experts believe that even intense nuclear bombing would not be enough to save the planet. Scientists say that there is a one in 2,700 chance that Bennu could hit Earth in 2135, and while those odds seem to be in our favour, they are minuscule in astronomical terms. For reference, scientists believe the odds of complex life arising on a planet is one in 10 Duodecillion – as a number that is one in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – yet here we are.

NASA is working on its (Hypervelocity Asteroid Mitigation Mission for Emergency Response vehicle) craft which is designed to blow up asteroids using nuclear weapons, or steer it clear but as Bennu is so big, the latter technique would not be possible as the machine would not be able to nudge the asteroid. This leaves the only option as nuking the asteroid, which means that even if it is destroyed, radioactive debris could rain down on Earth.

A new study reads: “Using a single HAMMER spacecraft as a battering ram would prove inadequate for deflecting an object like Bennu”. Kirsten Howley, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who is part of the planetary defence team, said: “The consequences would be dire. “This study aims to help us shorten the response timeline when we do see a clear and present danger so we can have more options to deflect it. “The ultimate goal is to be ready to protect life on Earth.”

NASA warns of end of the world as even nuclear bombs cannot save us from HUGE asteroid​

The asteroid weighs around 79 billion kilograms, some 1,664 times as heavy as the Titanic. HAMMER on the other hand is just nine metres tall so any chance of pushing the asteroid away would require a lot of effort. Ms Howley added: “The push you need to give it is very small if you deflect the asteroid 50 years out. “The probability of a Bennu impact may be 1 in 2,700 today, but that will almost certainly change – for better or worse – as we gather more data about its orbit. “Delay is the greatest enemy of any asteroid deflection mission.”

END OF THE WORLD: Empire State-sized asteroid is Earth-bound and NASA says we’re helpless

 

[harmonica]

no matter what we find, humans will always be the same