RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Large asteroid approaching close to Earth, Monday January 26th

NASA scientists are excited about a large asteroid hurtling toward Earth at 35,000 mph.

The giant space rock, dubbed 2004 BL86, measures five football fields across, and it will be making its closest approach to Earth on Monday, Jan. 26, at 11:20 a.m. ET when it will be 745,000 miles away.

Even though asteroids are notorious home wreckers, NASA says don't panic.

"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," Don Yeomans, the manager of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.

Humans won't see another asteroid this large shave by Earth for another 12 years. The next one will be asteroid 1999 AN10, in 2027.

The best time to see the asteroid will be early next week.



WHEN AND HOW TO TO WATCH

The asteroid will be brightest between 11:07 p.m. and 11:52 p.m. ET on Monday, Jan. 26, according to TheWatchers.

Although the asteroid will be too faint to see with the naked eye, observers can spot it with a small telescope or a pair of strong binoculars. According to IFLScience, the asteroid will be passing through the constellations of Hydra, Cancer, and Leo over the course of the night.

"I may grab my favorite binoculars and give it a shot myself," Yeomans said in the statement. "Asteroids are something special. Not only did asteroids provide Earth with the building blocks of life and much of its water, but in the future, they will become valuable resources for mineral ores and other vital natural resources."

If you can't gain access to a telescope or binoculars, or your skies are too cloudy, you can watch the asteroid approach live online. Slooh, the live online observatory, will broadcast the event starting at 11:00 a.m. ET on Monday, Jan. 26.

The broadcast, provided below, will include commentary from experts including Paul Chodas, manager of JPL's Near-Earth Object Program Office, and Lance Benner, NASA Research Scientist.


LEARNING MORE

Asteroid 2004 BL86 was first spotted in 2004. Because of its orbital path and size, the asteroid is on Earth's most wanted listed of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). This doesn't mean the asteroid will hit Earth; it means it has the potential to do so. NASA has found 1,537 PHAs so far, none of which have posed a significant danger to Earth.



In 1908, an asteroid only 120 feet across hit Earth and wiped out a part of a Russian forest the size of the city of London. The damage an asteroid the size of 2004 BL86 would be much worse, which is why scientists are on the look-out.

As the comet approaches Earth, NASA scientists will be watching and collecting data.

"At present, we know almost nothing about the asteroid, so there are bound to be surprises," said radar astronomer Lance Benner of JPL in the statement.

Since asteroid 2004 BL86 won't be returning to Earth for another 200 years, scientists are making the most of this opportunity.

They plan to observe the asteroid in multiple wavelengths, including with large radio dishes at NASA's Deep Space Network in Goldstone, California, and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

The dishes emit radio waves that hit the asteroid and bounce back to Earth. Astronomers analyze the returning signal, which can reveal information about the asteroid's shape, rotation, and internal density.

The Chelyabinsk meteor was a superbolide caused by a near-Earth asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere over Russia on 15 February 2013 at about 09:20 YEKT (03:20 UTC), with a speed of 19.16 +/- 0.15 kilometres per second (60,000[5] - 69,000 km/h or 40,000[5] - 42,900 mph).[6][7] It quickly became a brilliant superbolide meteor over the southern Ural region. The light from the meteor was brighter than the Sun, even at 100 km distance. It was observed over a wide area of the region and in neighbouring republics. Eyewitnesses also felt intense heat from the fireball.

On account of its high velocity and shallow angle of atmospheric entry, the object exploded in an air burst over Chelyabinsk Oblast, at a height of around 29.7 km (18.4 miles, 97,400 feet).[7][8] The explosion generated a bright flash, producing a hot cloud of dust and gas that penetrated to 26.2 km, and many surviving small fragmentary meteorites, as well as a large shock wave. The majority of the object's energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, with a total kinetic energy before atmospheric impact equivalent to approximately 500 kilotons of TNT (about 1.8 PJ), 20–30 times more energy than was released from the atomic bomb detonated at Hiroshima.

The object was undetected before its atmospheric entry, in part because its radiant was close to the Sun. Its explosion created panic among local residents and about 1,500 people were injured seriously enough to seek medical treatment. All of the injuries were due to indirect effects rather than the meteor itself, mainly from broken glass from windows that were blown in when the shock wave arrived, minutes after the superbolide's flash. Some 7,200 buildings in six cities across the region were damaged by the explosion's shock wave, and authorities scrambled to help repair the structures in sub-zero (°C) temperatures.

With an estimated initial mass of about 12,000–13,000 metric tonnes[7][8][9] (13,000–14,000 short tons, heavier than the Eiffel Tower), and measuring about 20 metres in diameter, it is the largest known natural object to have entered Earth's atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event, which destroyed a wide, remote, forested area of Siberia. The Chelyabinsk meteor is also the only meteor confirmed to have resulted in a large number of injuries.

Whizzed on by as predicted. Even had it's own little moon!