INCOMING!, Detection and observation of Earth-approaching asteroids. Options

[nprev]

All I know is that if by chance a couple of kg of meteoritic material ever falls into my apartment, the property management company's gonna be amazed at the amount of damage a dime-sized chunk of space rock did to their roof...

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

does anyone has details on the Ireland meteor of 3rd Feb 2010?
Astronomy Ireland said a space rock collided with the earth's atmosphere at around 6pm, and is now showering debris in many parts of the country.

[helvick]

I haven't heard of any convincing reports of anyone identifying any debris so far. It was a fairly significant fireball, it was seen over an area that covers about 200km north to south and (as is normal) everyone along the path seems to have been convinced that it fell nearby or "just over the horizon". It was visible for about 2 seconds according to Astronomy Ireland and there is a very strong chance that it actually landed in the sea (if indeed anything landed at all).

One problem they have narrowing down precisely where it might be is that we're notoriously hopeless with compass directions here in Ireland. Most people don't have even the vaguest notion of whether they are looking North, South or somewhere in between so the error bars on all of the eye witness reports are fairly large.

I'm personally disgusted that I missed it. It was a fairly clear sky, just after dusk and I was actually outside walking at the time but I didn't notice anything. Oh well, maybe next time.

[stevesliva]

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24917/

In 2007, however, the Hipparcos data was revised and other measurements of star velocities have since become available. How do these numbers change the figures?
...
What the new data has allowed Bobylev to do is calculate the probability of Gliese 710 smashing into the Solar System. What he's found is a shock.

He says there is 86 percent chance that GL 710 will plough through the Oort Cloud of frozen stuff that extends some 0.5 parsecs into space. [In 1.5 million years]

Incoming Orange Dwarf!

[ups]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR2uNajroOM

Big fireball over the US last night.

[galileo]

Long time reader, first post. This was a bright meteor or fireball caught on dash cam of patrol car in Eastern Iowa.
Link below:


http://www.kcci.com/video/23158154/

[Explorer1]

They found a piece:
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/art...group/homepage/

[Paolo]

There is some buzz on the internet today about object RT9B991, not yet issued a preliminary asteroid designation, that may come very close to Earth in the next days. It appears to have some significant parallax (i.e. to be close to us) but slow motion, as if it was seen "head on".
More observations will be needed to know when and how close it will get.

[dilo]

Thanks Paolo for highlight!
Based on Harvard ephemeris, minimum distance will be reached on Oct,12 around 11:14 UT, when proper motion will reach maximum value of 3900 arcsec/min (see plot below, with days on abscissa) Assuming a tipical speed of 15 Km/s, this means a geocentric distance slightly below 48000Km!

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[scalbers]

Good call, this discussion has it at 52000km.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/mpml/message/24302

[Paolo]

meanwhile, our small rocky friend has got a preliminary designation: 2010 TD54 http://www.minorplanetcenter.org/mpec/K10/K10T65.html
according to the same circular, closest approach will be 0.00043 AU around noon UTC tuesday. That's about 64,000 km

[ngunn]

Anybody know how big it is?

[nprev]

Not very, it seems; I'd bet that it's a lot less than 50m across, and probably less than 10. Peak visual magnitude is around 14 real near perapsis, otherwise hovers around 20. Phase angle changes dramatically as well; looks like it's coming straight out of the solar glare.

[djellison]

2008 TC3 was about 4m across iirc - that might be a point of reference.

[nprev]

Yeah, it's just a pebble in the sky. Should be some pretty cool flyby movies from the amateur astronomy community, though.