Impact ~ NEO; Near Earth Objects

[G David Bock]

Latest on the Russian meteor blast -
Meteor lurked for thousands of years before blasting Russia, experts say

EXCERPT:
Based on the readings from infrasound sensors stationed all over the world to monitor nuclear-weapons tests, NASA said the energy release was equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT, or roughly 30 times the energy released by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II. That translated into an object about 17 meters (55 feet wide), weighing 10,000 tons. The space agency said it was the biggest cosmic impact recognized since the 1908 Tunguska asteroid blast that leveled millions of trees in Siberia.
Less than a week after the blast, Colombian astronomers worked out a rough orbital path for the Chelyabinsk asteroid, based on an analysis of the videos captured by dashboard cameras and traffic cams in the area. On Friday, NASA produced a more definitive orbital track, based not only on the videos but also on the readings from the federal government's space sensors. The report took advantage of a recently signed agreement with the Air Force Space Command for the public release of previously hush-hush data.
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2...id=msnhp&pos=2

[Pirate-Drakk]

Not a lot of useful info coming out of Russian on the latest "event". However, this is interesting and it "explains" the dual contrails. One from the "object" and one from the "interceptor". It also explains why one smoke trail ends abruptly.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-emerges.html

Why is this sentence included in the article?

"Nuclear installations in the Urals remained undamaged by the fallout."

Any nuclear blast that does not eject surface materials into the air (e.g. air burst) will not create "fallout".

[G David Bock]

Four Asteroids Buzz Earth in Single Week

http://www.space.com/20149-asteroids...arth-week.html

[Pirate-Drakk]

Here's a new NASA web site for NEOs.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

Lot's of good info...

[GCoyote]

Here's a new NASA web site for NEOs.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

Lot's of good info...

Nice link PD and it included this one. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/fireballs/

Now that everyone and his brother has a video camera, this table should start to populate on a pretty regular basis.

[G David Bock]

Not that "science" or NASA is endorsing religion etc.;
Nasa's advice on asteroid hitting Earth: pray

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...arth-pray.html

[GCoyote]

Not that "science" or NASA is endorsing religion etc.;
Nasa's advice on asteroid hitting Earth: pray

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s...arth-pray.html

Well that's not any worse than my advice:

[G David Bock]

Dinosaur-killing space rock 'was a comet'

The space rock that hit Earth 65m years ago and is widely implicated in the end of the dinosaurs was probably a speeding comet, US scientists say.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21709229

[GCoyote]

Russian Meteor without the Hype

http://video.pbs.org/video/2358778286

Much better than the 'instant science' special the History Channel did. The close up of the infra sound system was interesting.

[G David Bock]

Dark, massive asteroid to fly by Earth on May 31

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.
...
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.
...
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/...0,548201.story

[GCoyote]

Meteor crashes into moon's surface causing flash – video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/vi...ce-flash-video

From the site:

A Nasa telescope captures the moment a 40kg (88lb) rock crashes into the moon's surface on Friday. The impact caused a flash 10 times brighter than any other Nasa has seen since it began monitoring the lunar surface eight years ago. Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite is now hunting for the newly-formed crater, which scientists believe could be up to 20m (66ft) in width

[G David Bock]

Latest updates;
Asteroid 1998 QE2's close encounter generates a wave of attention online

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2...on-online?lite

[G David Bock]

NASA Radar Shows Near-Earth Asteroid Bringing Its Own Moon

...
PASADENA (CBSLA.com) — A mile-long asteroid set to pass safely by Earth on Friday appears to be bringing along a companion.
Radar imagery showed that asteroid “1998 QE2″ is a binary asteroid, according to researchers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena.
About 16 percent of asteroids that are about 655 feet or larger are binary or triple systems, according to JPL.
Data shows the main body of the asteroid is approximately 1.7 miles in diameter and has a rotation period of less than four hours. Radar imagery also shows the space rock has several dark surface features that suggest large concavities.
The preliminary estimate for the size of the asteroid’s satellite, or moon, is approximately 2,000 feet wide, researchers said. The moon appears in JPL images as a small, bright object orbiting 1998 QE2.
...
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/...-its-own-moon/

[G David Bock]

Astronauts auction own artifacts to 'save the world' from asteroids

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/astro...ids-6C10547244

[G David Bock]

Russian Meteor Explosion Might Mean Earth Gets Hit More Often Than We Think

EXCERPT:
...
“When an asteroid explodes, its momentum is conserved and that explosion continues down toward the Earth,” Boslough said.

For that reason, the people who live in Chelyabinsk explosion are very lucky to be alive, he added. If the bollide had come into the atmosphere at a less steep angle, its blast would have been aimed right at the ground, likely doing much more damage.

That an airburst continues traveling in the same direction as a meteorite was only appreciated starting in the 1990s, particularly after the impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter. This understanding has led to revisions in estimates of the size of the asteroid that exploded over the Siberian tundra in 1908. This blast, known as the Tunguska event, flattened trees over a 2,000-square-kilometer area.

Scientists in the mid-20th century used nuclear blast comparisons to estimate Tunguska’s power. To make trees fall down over that large an area, a nuclear weapon would have to be 10 to 20 megatons. Now knowing how asteroid impact bursts can deliver more energy to the ground, the Tunguska bollide estimate has gotten smaller, suggesting that an object of roughly 100,000 tons entered the atmosphere and delivered a blast of between 3 and 5 megatons.

Tunguska and Chelyabinsk are thought to be among the most powerful asteroid impacts in recent history. That both would come within about 100 years of one another is slightly worrying to scientists like Boslough.
...
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...equent-impact/