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Two Small Asteroids to Pass Close by Earth on September 8

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13 years 6 months ago #86055 by dmcdona
neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news169.html

Two Small Asteroids to Pass Close by Earth on September 8, 2010 NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office September 7, 2010

Two asteroids, several meters in diameter and in unrelated orbits, will pass within the Moon's distance of Earth on Wednesday, September 8th.
The Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson Arizona discovered both objects on the morning of September 5 during their routine monitoring of the skies.
The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge Massachusetts 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 10 to 20 meters in size and will pass within 0.6 lunar distances of Earth (about 248,000 km) at 9:51 Greenwich standard time (5:51 am
EDT) Wednesday. The second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 6 to 14 meters in size will pass within 0.2 lunar distances (79,000 km) a few hours later at 21:12 Greenwich standard time (5:12 pm EDT). Both objects should be observable near closest approach with moderate sized amateur telescopes. Although neither of these object has a chance of hitting Earth, a ten meter-sized near-Earth asteroid from the undiscovered population of about 50 million would be expected to pass almost daily within a lunar distance, and one might strike Earth's atmosphere about every ten years on average.

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13 years 6 months ago #86062 by Seanie_Morris
No general info as to where to look for these guys. I know it will be hard to narrow that down at such close quarters but is there a general direction to look at? Do we keep an eye out around the Moon?

Seanie.

Midlands Astronomy Club.
Radio Presenter (Midlands 103), Space Enthusiast, Astronomy Outreach Co-ordinator.
Former IFAS Chairperson and Secretary.

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13 years 6 months ago #86066 by johnflannery
hi Seanie,

Tom's Asteroid Fly-bys at hea-www.harvard.edu/~fine/Astro/flybys.cgi is a very useful page to generate a plot for a near-Earth asteroid's track across the sky. I use that page sometimes when checking out future fly-bys worth mentioning in the Sky-Guide booklet (working on the 2011 edition at the moment and should have it ready in about a month or so.)

talk to you soon,

john

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13 years 6 months ago #86073 by dmcdona
Seanie_Morris wrote:

is there a general direction to look at? Do we keep an eye out around the Moon?


You could generate ephemerides (simply by typing in the objects names) here: www.minorplanetcenter.org/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html
Ideally, also put in your geographical co-ordinates too. And keep the time period down to a few tens on minutes - with such a close approach they'll be moving quickly.

The moon refernces in the text are simply to give folks a sense of how close the objects will approach, not that they'll be close to or near the moon...

But for you Seanie I'd say have a look around about Uranus. You might see some unusual objects there alright.

Dave

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13 years 6 months ago - 13 years 6 months ago #86084 by Seanie_Morris
dmcdona wrote:

But for you Seanie I'd say have a look around about Uranus. You might see some unusual objects there alright.


Is the King of Puns back? :laugh:

Midlands Astronomy Club.
Radio Presenter (Midlands 103), Space Enthusiast, Astronomy Outreach Co-ordinator.
Former IFAS Chairperson and Secretary.
Last edit: 13 years 6 months ago by Seanie_Morris.

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13 years 6 months ago #86093 by dmcdona

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