Mountain-Sized, 500-Meter-Wide Asteroid to Whizz By Earth on Monday

An asteroid, designated 2004 BL86, is set to pass near Earth on Monday, according to NASA.

The 500-meter-wide rock may seem apocalyptic in size, but thankfully it will pass no closer than 1.2 million kilometers of our planet — about three times the distance between Earth and the moon. The agency says it will provide a rare opportunity to get a good look at a near-Earth asteroid.
The next chance will come in 2027, when asteroid 1999 AN10 will fly past Earth.

Due to its orbit around the sun, the asteroid is currently only visible by astronomers with large telescopes who are located in the southern hemisphere.

However, by January 26, its changing position will make it visible to in the northern hemisphere.

"Monday, January 26 will be the closest asteroid 2004 BL86 will get to Earth for at least the next 200 years," Don Yeomans, who is retiring as manager of NASA's Near Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California is quoted as saying in a statement on NASA’s website.

"And while it poses no threat to Earth for the foreseeable future, it's a relatively close approach by a relatively large asteroid, so it provides us a unique opportunity to observe and learn more."

The scientists plan to track the fast-moving space rock using the 230-foot (70 m) dish-shaped Goldstone antenna at NASA's Deep Space Network in California, as well as the 1,000-foot (305 m) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. These radio dishes will beam microwave signals at the asteroid, which will then bounce off the target and return to Earth.

"When we get our radar data back the day after the flyby, we will have the first detailed images," said radar astronomer Lance Benner of the JPL, the principal investigator handling the Goldstone radar observations of the asteroid. "At present, we know almost nothing about the asteroid, so there are bound to be surprises."

Asteroid 2004 BL86 was initially discovered on January 30, 2004 by a telescope from the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey in White Sands, New Mexico.

The asteroid is expected to be observable to amateur astronomers with small telescopes and strong binoculars.
  http://sputniknews.com/science/20150125/1017328213.html
25/1/15
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Asteroid to dart between moon and Earth. -The asteroid, named 2014 DX110

[An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube by user @wowforreeel]

An Apollo class asteroid is expected to whizz between the Earth and the moon on March 5. The 98-foot-wide space rock is expected to come within 218,000 miles of earth (0.9 lunar distances), creating quite the site for stargazers.
The asteroid, named 2014 DX110, is expected to make its closest approach at 21:07 GMT on Wednesday at a blistering speed of 14.85 km/s (32,076 mph). Although the space rock poses no threat to earth, it highlights the earth’s susceptibility to near-Earth asteroids.

For amateur astronomers interested in watching the flyby as it happens, the virtual telescope project will offer live coverage via Slooh, which allows viewers to peer through a telescope via the web. 

DX110 belongs to the Apollo class of asteroids, a group of Earth-crossing asteroids, which pose a potential threat to humankind. The February-15, 2013, 65-foot-wide meteor, which exploded over the town of Chelyabinsk in the southern Urals region of Russia, belonged to the Apollo class. The meteor explosion was 30 times stronger than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. As windowpanes shattered throughout the city, 1,500 people were injured, but luckily no one was killed. 

Nearly one year after the Chelyabinsk atmospheric extravaganza, another massive asteroid sailed past the Earth. The space-rock known officially as 2000 EM26 had an estimated diameter of 885 feet, roughly the equivalent of 3 football fields. It however, only came within some 2,094,400 miles of Earth. 

Based on the orbits of such space rocks, many of them are likely originate in "the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. While DX110 will come nearly ten times closer to Earth than the exponentially larger EM26, another asteroid – 2012 DA14 – came within 17,200 miles of the Earth’s surface. In an amazing cosmic coincidence, DA14 made its near-earth flyby on the exact same day the Chelyabinsk impacter hit. Scientists say if the 150ft-wide had hit Earth, it would have had enough destructive power to level a major metropolis the size of Moscow or London. 

And last week, a 400 kg meteor slammed into the moon at a speed of 36,600 mph, leaving behind a 40-meter-wide crater.

Meanwhile, Researchers say that space rocks of a similar size to the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk are hurtling into the Earth's atmosphere with surprising frequency.
Last November, scientists writing for the journals Nature and Science reported that the likelihood of a space rock similar in size to the Chelyabinsk meteor was up to seven times more likely to strike the earth than previously believed, AP reported. 

In total, that means about 20 million space rocks the size of the Chelyabinsk one may be speeding through our solar system, and not 3 million, said NASA scientist Paul Chodas.
Previously, scientists believed that such airburst events as happened over the Urals only occur approximately once every 150 years. Now the frequency of such an event is estimated to be every 30 years.
Scientists say early warning systems need to be put in place in order to safeguard against future events. 
http://rt.com/news/asteroid-flyby-earth-moon-783/
4/3/14
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 Related:

• «Απόφις»: Αστεροειδής θα περάσει «ξυστά» από τη Γη στις 15 Φεβρουαρίου

• ΝΑΣΑ: Ο Άπωφις μπορεί να συγκρουστεί με τη Γη το 2068..... η πιθανότητα αυτού του συμβάντος είναι πολύ μικρή – λιγότερο από 2,3 στο εκατομμύριο.....

• Fighting Asteroids a New Task for Russia’s Space Industry...

• Il mondo finirà nel 2032. -L' asteroide dovrebbe passare a circa 1 milione e mezzo di chilometri dalla terra, troppo vicino per stare tranquilli. (video CNN)

• Η Ρωσία θα βάλει «Παγίδα» στους αστεροειδείς 

• Γιγάντιος αστεροειδής κατευθύνεται προς τη Γη/Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not hit Earth-VIDEO

Russia, US Plan to Jointly Fight Space Threats

MOSCOW, January 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russian and US experts are planning to join efforts in protecting our planet against thousands of potentially hazardous near-Earth space bodies, Russia’s emergencies minister said.

“The collision with the Chelyabinsk meteorite last year showed that space threats could be real and as destructive as huge fires or natural disasters on Earth,” Vladimir Puchkov said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta to be published on Tuesday.
The minister said a joint working group would be set up in the near future to develop solutions to counter space threats.


A meteorite entered the Earth’s atmosphere undetected by existing space-monitoring systems and slammed into Russia’s Ural Mountain region last February, accompanied by a massive sonic boom that blew out windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the city of Chelyabinsk, injuring over 1,500.

NASA estimated the meteorite was roughly 50 feet (15 meters) in diameter when it entered the atmosphere, traveling many times faster than the speed of sound, and exploded into a fireball brighter than the sun.

A team of researchers has recently studied two decades’ worth of data gathered by US government-run infrasound sensors positioned around the planet and discovered that 60 asteroids up to 20 meters (65 feet) in size had crashed into the planet’s atmosphere over the period – far more than had been previously thought.

The scientists suggested in a report published in Nature magazine that asteroids like the Chelyabinsk one could strike the planet every 20 or even 10 years, compared with an earlier estimate of once a century.

Despite the growing concern about the asteroid threat, no anti-asteroid defense programs have been developed in practice so far, with only several theoretical concepts being studied.
 http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140127/186966575/Russia-US-Plan-to-Jointly-Fight-Space-Threats.html
27/1/14
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Related:

• Δέκα φορές υψηλότερος του αναμενομένου ο κίνδυνος πρόσκρουσης αστεροειδή στη Γη./Hazardous asteroids may be more numerous than previously thought, scientists say.

• Fighting Asteroids a New Task for Russia’s Space Industry...

• Ο ΟΗΕ θέλει να προστατέψει τη γη από «επιθέσεις» αστεροειδών. -Αναζητά τρόπους να τις προβλέπει.

• Russian Scientist Proposes Satan Missiles to Fight Asteroid Threats

• Ο πύραυλος «Σατανάς» μπορεί να προστατεύσει από διαστημικές απειλές.....

 
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• Η Ρωσία θα βάλει «Παγίδα» στους αστεροειδείς 

• Το ΥΕΑ της Ρωσίας θα προστατέψει τον πληθυσμό από τους μετεωρίτες....

• Η Ροσκόσμος και η Ρωσική Ακαδημία Επιστημών ξεκίνησαν ένα πρόγραμμα για τη μελέτη των απειλών από το διάστημα

Δέκα φορές υψηλότερος του αναμενομένου ο κίνδυνος πρόσκρουσης αστεροειδή στη Γη./Hazardous asteroids may be more numerous than previously thought, scientists say.

Σήμα κινδύνου για την αύξηση περιστατικών όπως αυτό που συνέβη στο Τσελιάμπινσκ τον περασμένο Φεβρουάριο αφήνοντας πίσω του 1.200 τραυματίες εκπέμπει σχετική μελέτη που δημοσιεύθηκε στο περιοδικό Nature.

Όπως αναφέρουν τα μέλη της επιστημονικής ομάδας που τη συνέταξε, διαστημικοί βράχοι παρόμοιου μεγέθους με αυτόν που εξερράγη πάνω από το Τσελιάμπινσκ εμφανίζονται στην τροχιά της Γης με εκπληκτική συχνότητα.

Γι' αυτό και ζητούν την ενεργοποίηση συστημάτων έγκαιρης προειδοποίησης.


«Αξίζει να αναπτύξουμε ένα σύστημα που να σκανάρει τον ουρανό σχεδόν συνεχώς ψάχνοντας για τέτοιου είδους αντικείμενα πριν χτυπήσουν τη Γη. Στην περίπτωση του Τσελιάμπινσκ η προειδοποίηση λίγων ημερών ή μιας εβδομάδας θα ήταν πολύτιμη» δήλωσε στο BBC ο επικεφαλής της επιστημονικής συντακτικής ομάδας, καθηγητής Πίτερ Μπράουν.

Η ομάδα υπολογίζει ότι η συχνότητα εμφάνισης τέτοιων αστεροειδών είναι απο δύο έως δέκα φορές μεγαλύτερη από αυτό που πιστεύαμε μέχρι σήμερα.

«Κάποιο παρόμοιο περιστατικό με αυτό του Τσελιάμπινσκ θα το περιμέναμε κάθε 150 χρόνια με βάση τα στοιχεία από τα τηλεσκόπια. Αλλά αν κοιτάξει κανείς τα νεώτερα στοιχεία τότε ένα τέτοιο συμβάν θα μπορούσε να συμβεί κάθε 30 χρόνια» δήλωσε ο καθηγητής στο πανεπιστήμιο του Οντάριο.
 protothema.gr
6/11/13
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• >>>>>Ο ΟΗΕ θέλει να προστατέψει τη γη από «επιθέσεις» αστεροειδών. -Αναζητά τρόπους να τις προβλέπει.<<<<<

• Hazardous asteroids may be more numerous than previously thought, scientists say.

By Joel Achenbach

There are scads of building-size, potentially hazardous asteroids lurking in Earth’s immediate neighborhood, and they may be colliding with the planet 10 times more often than scientists have previously believed, according to a new study published Wednesday that examined the airburst of a 25-million-pound asteroid earlier this year near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.
Three studies released Wednesday, two in the journal Nature and one in the journal Science, have provided the most detailed description and analysis of the dramatic event on the morning of Feb. 15. 

Scientists now estimate the diameter of the object at just a hair under 20 meters, or about 65 feet. Undetected by astronomers, the rock came out of the glare of the sun and hit the atmosphere at 43,000 miles per hour.

As it descended through the atmosphere, it broke into fragments, creating a series of explosions with the combined energy of about 500 kilotons of TNT, making it more than 30 times more powerful than the atom bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945, although the energy in this case was spread out over a much broader area.
The shock wave blew out windows in nearly half the buildings in Chelyabinsk. It knocked people off their feet; dozens were sunburned by the blinding flash, which at its peak was 30 times brighter than the sun. About 1,200 people were hurt, most by broken and flying glass, but no one was killed.
One chunk the size of love seat landed in frozen Chebarkul Lake, leaving a circular hole, as if shot with a bullet from space. That fragment, which weighed about 1,900 pounds, was retrieved months later, breaking into several pieces in the process. Thousands of smaller pieces have also been recovered.
The scientific investigation relied to a great degree on video imagery obtained by “dashcams,” the cameras Russian drivers often use to document car crashes and potentially abusive law enforcement. Scientists visited 10 locations where the footage had been taken by stationary cameras, and used landmarks to create a map of the asteroid’s trajectory. The shock wave damage propagated perpendicularly to the path of the rock.
“It’s incredible how well-documented all this is,” said Peter Jenniskens, a meteor astronomer at the SETI Institute and a co-author of the paper in Science.
Taken together, the new information on Chelyabinsk does not suggest that the sky is falling (no one has ever been killed by an asteroid in all of recorded human history). But it may shift the overall risk profile of asteroids, making Chelyabinsk-size events look more probable.
That’s the conclusion of Peter Brown, a professor at Western University in London, Ontario, who reexamined decades of data compiled by scientific and military sensors. The scientific orthodoxy said that a Chelyabinsk-size event ought to happen every 140 years or so, but Brown saw several such events in the historical record.
Famously, a large object exploded over the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908. But there have been less-heralded impacts, including one on Aug. 3, 1963, when an asteroid created a powerful airburst off the coast of South Africa.
“Any one of these taken separately I think you can dismiss as a one-off. But now when we look at it as a whole, over a hundred years, we see these large impactors more frequently than we would expect,” said Brown, whose paper appeared in Nature.
Most rocks that size have yet to be identified, and it would be difficult and expensive to find them and calculate their trajectories, Brown said. But this could boost efforts already underway to create early-warning systems for Chelyabinsk-class impactors that are just a few days away, he said.
The paper in Science hypothesized that the Chelyabinsk asteroid is a piece of “rubble” from a larger body that had been broken apart by tidal forces from an earlier near-Earth encounter.
“The rest of that rubble could still be part of the near-Earth object population,” the authors wrote.
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hazardous-asteroids-may-be-more-numerous-than-previously-thought-scientists-say/2013/11/06/c022a022-46f2-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage
6/11/13

Fighting Asteroids a New Task for Russia’s Space Industry...

MOSCOW, October 20 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s space agency has a new mission on its plate: fighting asteroids, the organization’s head said Sunday.
Oleg Ostapenko, chief of the Roscosmos federal space agency, said that meetings had been arranged with the Russian Academy of Sciences to discuss the project and later confer with scientists. “It’s an interesting topic,” he said.

Detecting and combating threatening space rocks is a complex task, Ostapenko added, which may also require teamwork with Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces. The issue “can be solved only within the framework of all our country’s possibilities,” he said.


The announcement follows last week’s discovery of a 410-meter-wide (1,350 foot) asteroid that could hit Earth in 2032, which Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin called “a super-task for our space industry.”
Scientists’ initial estimates say the asteroid has a 1 in 63,000 chance of colliding with Earth on August 26, 2032, though they said astronomers will be able to better evaluate the impact risk in 2028.

The asteroid has been given a 1 out of 10 rating on the Torino Scale, which estimates asteroid impact hazards.
Another space intruder made headlines earlier this year when a meteor exploded over Russia’s Urals city of Chelyabinsk in February, shattering windows and shocking residents.
 http://en.ria.ru/science/20131020/184254948/Fighting-Asteroids-a-New-Task-for-Russias-Space-Industry.html
20/10/13
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Related:

•  Il mondo finirà nel 2032. -L' asteroide dovrebbe passare a circa 1 milione e mezzo di chilometri dalla terra, troppo vicino per stare tranquilli. (video CNN)

• Russian Scientist Proposes Satan Missiles to Fight Asteroid Threats

• Γιγάντιος αστεροειδής κατευθύνεται προς τη Γη/Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not hit Earth-VIDEO

• Η Ροσκόσμος και η Ρωσική Ακαδημία Επιστημών ξεκίνησαν ένα πρόγραμμα για τη μελέτη των απειλών από το διάστημα

• «Απόφις»: Αστεροειδής θα περάσει «ξυστά» από τη Γη στις 15 Φεβρουαρίου

• Η Ρωσία θα βάλει «Παγίδα» στους αστεροειδείς

 ----------------

•  Εντοπίστηκε με ακρίβεια το σημείο πτώσης ενός θραύσματος του μετεωρίτη στο Τσεμπαρκούλ....

• Ο αστεροειδής 2012 DA14 την επόμενη φορά θα προσεγγίσει τη Γη το 2046.....

Il mondo finirà nel 2032. -L' asteroide dovrebbe passare a circa 1 milione e mezzo di chilometri dalla terra, troppo vicino per stare tranquilli. (video CNN)

L’asteroide 2013 TV135, che misura 410 metri, potrebbe colpire il nostro pianeta, provocando un’esplosione paragonabile a 50 bombe atomiche.

 Nonostante le possibilità siano molto basse, una su 63.000 secondo la “scala Torino” che misura la pericolosità di questi corpi celesti, gli scienziati hanno inserito questo oggetto spaziale nella lista degli asteroidi pericolosi. Quando? Nel 2032. E' stato scoperto nella costellazione delle Giraffe dall’”Osservatorio della Crimea” nel Sud dell’Ucraina da Gennady Borisov.

Diversi astronomi di tutto il mondo hanno specificato che questo asteroide dovrebbe passare a circa 1 milione e mezzo di chilometri dalla terra, troppo vicino per stare tranquilli.

•  L’asteroide si muove molto velocemente ed è probabile che gli scienziati siano in grado di determinare meglio la pericolosità di questo corpo celeste nel 2028, quando sarà abbastanza vicino da poter essere studiato in modo approfondito.

 http://www.affaritaliani.it/culturaspettacoli/nuova-data-della-fine-del-mondo.html?ref=ig
18/10/13
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• Russian Scientist Proposes Satan Missiles to Fight Asteroid Threats

• Γιγάντιος αστεροειδής κατευθύνεται προς τη Γη/Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not hit Earth-VIDEO

• Η Ροσκόσμος και η Ρωσική Ακαδημία Επιστημών ξεκίνησαν ένα πρόγραμμα για τη μελέτη των απειλών από το διάστημα

• «Απόφις»: Αστεροειδής θα περάσει «ξυστά» από τη Γη στις 15 Φεβρουαρίου

• Η Ρωσία θα βάλει «Παγίδα» στους αστεροειδείς

 ----------------

•  Εντοπίστηκε με ακρίβεια το σημείο πτώσης ενός θραύσματος του μετεωρίτη στο Τσεμπαρκούλ....

• Ο αστεροειδής 2012 DA14 την επόμενη φορά θα προσεγγίσει τη Γη το 2046.....

 

Russian Scientist Proposes Satan Missiles to Fight Asteroid Threats

YEKATERINBURG, June 23 (RIA Novosti) – Russia can use Soviet-era SS-18 Satan heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles to destroy celestial bodies posing a threat to Earth, a Russian scientist said on Sunday, four months after a powerful meteor struck Russia’s Urals region.

“Carrier rockets created on the basis of intercontinental ballistic missiles like Voyevoda [the Soviet name of Satan missiles], which use standard liquid fuel based on hydrazine, are well-suited for fighting suddenly discovered small [space] objects,” said Sabit Saitgarayev, a senior researcher at the State Rocket Design Center in the city of Miass in the Chelyabinsk Region.
“They [missiles] can stay in the condition of their readiness for launch for ten and more years, after some reequipping,” the scientist said.


Cryogenic fuel used in Russian heavy space rockets Soyuz and Angara cannot be kept for long and is supplied directly before the launch. Several days are required for preparing these rockets for launch, which makes them unsuitable for destroying small space objects that can be discovered several hours before their collision with the Earth, the scientist said.

Satan missiles can be used for destroying small space objects with a diameter of up to 100 meters threatening the Earth, if the missile is equipped with the third stage. If reequipped with a booster, the missile will be able to destroy space objects five-six hours before their collision with the Earth, he said.

The Satan missile can take off 10-20 minutes after an order for launch, the scientist said. If two hours are needed for the missile to reach the target, another two hours are required to specify the space object’s trajectory and one hour to coordinate the missile launch with the heads of other countries, he argued.
The scientist’s proposal comes about four months after a meteorite entered the Earth’s atmosphere and slammed into Russia’s Urals on February 15 with a massive boom that blew out windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the city of Chelyabinsk, injuring 1,200 people in the area. According to the Health Ministry, 52 were hospitalized.
NASA estimates the meteorite was roughly 50 feet (15 meters) in diameter when it entered Earth's atmosphere, travelling faster than the speed of sound, and exploded into a fireball brighter than the sun.

The Soviet-era Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan) ICBMs have been in service since 1967.
http://en.rian.ru
23/6/13
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Related:

• Γιγάντιος αστεροειδής κατευθύνεται προς τη Γη/Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not hit Earth-VIDEO

• Η Ροσκόσμος και η Ρωσική Ακαδημία Επιστημών ξεκίνησαν ένα πρόγραμμα για τη μελέτη των απειλών από το διάστημα

• «Απόφις»: Αστεροειδής θα περάσει «ξυστά» από τη Γη στις 15 Φεβρουαρίου

• Η Ρωσία θα βάλει «Παγίδα» στους αστεροειδείς

 ----------------

•  Εντοπίστηκε με ακρίβεια το σημείο πτώσης ενός θραύσματος του μετεωρίτη στο Τσεμπαρκούλ....

• Ο αστεροειδής 2012 DA14 την επόμενη φορά θα προσεγγίσει τη Γη το 2046.....

 

Γιγάντιος αστεροειδής κατευθύνεται προς τη Γη/Near-Earth Asteroid 2012 DA14 will not hit Earth-VIDEO

Ένας αστεροειδής, που θα περάσει κοντά από τη Γη σε 2 βδομάδες, θα βρεθεί στην πιο κοντινή απόσταση σε αυτή.


Η απόσταση μεταξύ του αστεροειδούς και της Γης τη στιγμή της μέγιστης προσέγγισης θα αποτελέσει 17000 χλμ. Κάτι τέτοιο δεν έχει ξανασυμβεί στη σύγχρονη ιστορία του πλανήτη μας.

Ο αστεροειδής 2012DA14, που ανακαλύφθηκε από το ισπανικό αστεροσκοπείο της Λα Σάγκρα, θα πλησιάσει τη Γη στις 15 Φεβρουαρίου. Θα βρεθεί πιο κοντά, απ’ ότι ορισμένοι τεχνητοί δορυφόροι της Γης.


Η διάμετρος του 2012DA14 είναι 45 μ., η μάζα του είναι 130000 τόνοι. Σε περίπτωση πρόσπτωσης στη Γη θα εκλυθεί ενέργεια, ισοδύναμη με έκρηξη 2,4 μεγατόνων.
.greek.ruvr.ru
3/2/13
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This asteroid seems to have travelled a long distance before a close earth-encounter on 19 August 2004, and back to travel a shorter distance, and meet us again on 14 February 2013. I wonder where this asteroid has been to.

Distance between Earth-Moon: 0.00256 AU = 384,401 km