[X] My Assistant

[SteveM]

Here's a new Horizon ephemeris for the pass of asteroid 2007 WD5 over the Spirit site. I've added a new column to the output with Local Apparent Solar Time (which differs slightly from the Mean Solar Time JPL's MER team uses).

Steve M

CODE

Target body name: (2007 WD5)                      {source: JPL#8}
Center body name: Mars (499)                      {source: DE405}
Center-site name: Spirit Landing Site (MER) / Gusev
*******************************************************************************
Start time      : A.D. 2008-Jan-30 11:00:00.0000 UT      
Stop  time      : A.D. 2008-Jan-30 14:00:00.0000 UT      
Step-size       : 10 minutes
*******************************************************************************
Target pole/equ : No model available
Target radii    : (unavailable)                                                
Center geodetic : -175.48330,-14.566677,-.0066762 {E-lon(deg),Lat(deg),Alt(km)}
Center cylindric: -175.48330,3288.23600,-844.4501 {E-lon(deg),Dxy(km),Dz(km)}
Center pole/equ : IAU_MARS                        {East-longitude -}
Center radii    : 3396.2 x 3396.2 x 3376.2 km     {Equator, meridian, pole}    
Target primary  : Sun                             {source: DE405}
Interfering body: PHOBOS (Req= 13.400) km         {source: MAR063}
Deflecting body : Sun, MARS                       {source: DE405}
Deflecting GMs  : 1.3271E+11, 4.2828E+04 km^3/s^2                              
Small perturbers: Ceres, Pallas, Vesta            {source: SB405-CPV-2}
Small body GMs  : 6.32E+01, 1.43E+01, 1.78E+01 km^3/s^2                        
Atmos refraction: NO (AIRLESS)
RA format       : HMS
Time format     : CAL
RTS-only print  : NO      
EOP file        : eop.080101.p080324                                          
EOP coverage    : DATA-BASED 1962-JAN-20 TO 2008-JAN-01. PREDICTS-> 2008-MAR-23
Units conversion: 1 AU= 149597870.691 km, c= 299792.458 km/s, 1 day= 86400.0 s
Table cut-offs 1: Elevation (-90.0deg=NO ),Airmass     n.a.    , Daylight (NO )
Table cut-offs 2: Solar Elongation (  0.0,180.0=NO )                          
*******************************************************************************
Initial FK5/J2000.0 heliocentric ecliptic osculating elements (AU, DAYS, DEG):
  EPOCH=  2454434.5 ! 2007-Nov-30.00 (CT)         Residual RMS= .27399        
    EC= .6029126939128898  QR= 1.010155286144832  TP= 2454392.142635427        
    OM= 67.42380154980685  W= 312.8217042008886   IN= 2.377011213076177        
Asteroid physical parameters (KM, SEC, rotational period in hours):
    GM= n.a.               RAD= n.a.              ROTPER= n.a.                
    H= 24.336              G= .150                B-V= n.a.                    
                           ALBEDO= n.a.           STYP= n.a.                  
*********************************************************************
Date__(UT)__HR:MN     R.A._(ICRF/J2000.0)_DEC Azi_(a-appr)_Elev  APmag            delta      deldot L_Ap_SOL_Time
*********************************************************************
$$SOE
2008-Jan-30 11:00     17 32 37.75 -28 21 06.3 104.1778 -31.5508   n.a. .000460072319574 -11.1156163 02 15 53.6700
2008-Jan-30 11:10     17 17 19.90 -28 19 00.0 103.9278 -25.9495   n.a. .000416184992425 -10.7501418 02 25 37.7592
2008-Jan-30 11:20     16 58 31.63 -28 07 29.7 103.8917 -19.5825   n.a. .000374023608028 -10.2464432 02 35 21.8486
2008-Jan-30 11:30     16 35 13.15 -27 39 35.8 104.1159 -12.2139   n.a. .000334262329453  -9.5406128 02 45 05.9383
2008-Jan-30 11:40     16 06 16.14 -26 43 51.2 104.6810  -3.5471   n.a. .000297886894691  -8.5401645 02 54 50.0281
2008-Jan-30 11:50  r  15 30 40.09 -25 03 02.4 105.7268   6.7421   n.a. .000266314303252  -7.1239818 03 04 34.1182
2008-Jan-30 12:00     14 48 11.03 -22 15 54.4 107.5081  18.8801  11.87 .000241464314346  -5.1715824 03 14 18.2084
2008-Jan-30 12:10     14 00 16.90 -18 07 18.0 110.5258  32.7221  11.00 .000225598430869  -2.6539639 03 24 02.2990
2008-Jan-30 12:20     13 10 30.03 -12 46 37.4 115.8787  47.4169  10.33 .000220689063986   0.2383794 03 33 46.3898
2008-Jan-30 12:30     12 23 15.57 -06 55 15.8 126.3293  61.3195   9.89 .000227466867097   3.0990608 03 43 30.4808
2008-Jan-30 12:40     11 41 48.43 -01 24 01.0 149.2184  71.9874   9.67 .000244977003702   5.5431073 03 53 14.5722
2008-Jan-30 12:50  t  11 07 17.42 +03 16 04.3 191.0093  75.5431   9.60 .000271156362793   7.4178189 04 02 58.6638
2008-Jan-30 13:00     10 39 17.83 +06 58 48.0 224.1826  71.5851   9.62 .000303776954115   8.7734747 04 12 42.7557
2008-Jan-30 13:10     10 16 46.14 +09 51 32.6 239.5451  65.3006   9.69 .000340998830652   9.7339015 04 22 26.8479
2008-Jan-30 13:20  x  09 58 34.80 +12 05 07.9 246.9795  59.0609   9.80 .000381480283317  10.4161770 04 32 10.9404
2008-Jan-30 13:30  x  09 43 45.91 +13 49 19.1 251.0525  53.3308   9.92 .000424291592808  10.9078364 04 41 55.0332
2008-Jan-30 13:40  x  09 31 33.90 +15 11 40.8 253.4802  48.1280  10.04 .000468796659878  11.2689096 04 51 39.1263
2008-Jan-30 13:50  x  09 21 24.10 +16 17 46.8 254.9965  43.3796  10.17 .000514557497950  11.5394226 05 01 23.2198
2008-Jan-30 14:00  x  09 12 50.38 +17 11 37.9 255.9586  39.0048  10.29 .000561267913255  11.7460149 05 11 07.3136

[Guest_Bobby_*]

I have a question also regarding the possible hit of this asteroid?

If they determine it is going to Hit Mars near Opportunity?
Will they drive Opportunity out of Victoria Crater to photograph the impact from a distance.
I think any additional images especially from ground level would have a lot of information in it?

Just Wondering

[nprev]

I doubt very much that even IF it hits (shoulda used a larger font for "if", because impact remains unlikely in the extreme) we'd have enough certainty regarding the impact location to make this possible.

In fact, as I stated in an earlier post, I strongly doubt that we'll even know if it does hit until several days afterwards at the earliest, unless the MER IMUs sense it. This is a pretty small rock, and tracking it during the terminal inbound & outbound phases is gonna be a few notches above 'challenging'...

[Holder of the Tw...]

Latest report...

Less of a chance

[elakdawalla]

Here's the source from which Marsdaily copied the story, which also has the diagram at a legible resolution.
New Observations Slightly Decrease Mars Impact Probability

--Emily

[babboxy]

Yeah, 1 in 75 isn't great...but here's hoping for some serious luck!!! We have 3 active orbiters; there's never been a better time in history for this to happen!

I'm not as interested in seeing the actual impact itself as I am in seeing the resultant crater, which would be strong enough to expose some deeply buried materials that could be studied before the ubiquitous dust coats them...

I'm not as interested in seeing the actual impact itself as I am in seeing the resultant faces of some polititians when they realize such a thing can hit them at any time...

[Stu]

They don't care! If they cared, any of them, they'd have put money into searches etc before now, after SL9 gave Jupiter a good slap in '94. It's one of those things that's just a "theoretical possibility" to them, right up there along with global warming and the chance they might give a straight answer to a straight question...

But that's getting into politics, sorry Admins. My bad. Thing is, this impact - if it happens - will only excite scientists and science enthusiasts like ourselves, here on t'internet and in the real world's astronomy and science magazines. For everyone else, even if the asteroid chunk somehow blasted a 10km wide crater into Mars, it would be a news item to be splashed across the tabloids' front pages with a suitably lurid headline, and tagged on the end of the TV news shows - reported by a giggly I-wear-my-ignorance-about-science-like-a-medal bubblehead or a sneering, square-jawed, Grecian 2000-dyed "oh man, look what those excited geeky scientists are all excited about THIS time!" anchorman, illustrated with clips from Armageddon or Deep Impact, and linked with sound bites that are about as scientifically accurate as the script of the original "Lost in Space".

Part of me is actually hoping it misses, you know? I don't know if I could stand the Impact Day's awful reporting and the political sidewinding that would follow.

But the bigger part of me is still hoping we see something amazing soon after the 30th.

[Jeff7]

Stu - with your (likely accurate) description of the news' probable treatment of this impact, I think I wept inside just a little bit. Science brought us the modern world as we know it. Let's make fun of it!


Darn on this decrease in impact probability. That would have been especially neat to get a good picture of the crater from HIRISE.

[bugs_]

will only excite scientists and science enthusiasts like ourselves, here on t'internet and in the real world's astronomy and science magazines.

I was working at a small ISP when the SL9 impact occured. The minutes used by our customers during that period leaped as
everyone was downloading images.

I think the SL9 event touched a broader spectrum of people and had to have made most of them think about the implications.

Another impact event would similarly draw interest and reinforce those that viewed the first one.

We'd have a large group of people that witnessed two massive impact events in their lifetime! Not just scientists.

[Greg Hullender]

Stu, this is from the Pan-STARRS site: http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/as...oid_threat.html

"Most of the asteroids and comets in our solar system pose no danger to our planet. But, for every thousand or so of those objects, there is one with an orbit crosses that of Earth, raising the possibility of a future collision. In 1991 the U.S. Congress directed NASA to conduct workshops on how potentially threatening asteroids could be detected, and how they could be deflected or destroyed. This mandate led to the Spaceguard Survey Report in 1992. In 1994 the House Committee on Science and Technology directed NASA, in coordination with the DOD, to work with the space agencies of other countries to identify and catalogue within 10 years the orbital characteristics of 90% of all comets and asteroids larger than 1 km and in orbits that cross the orbit of Earth."

I note that Pan-STARRS appears to be on schedule.

--Greg

[Lucas]

PANSTARRS-1 is in operation now in Haleakala. But the full-operation PANSTARRS (also refered to as PS-4) is facing an uncertain future. It should be located in Mauna Kea, but there's fierce opposition to the construction of any new telescopes in the Hawaiian islands by certain groups of natives.

In related news, LSST (an 8-m telescope designed to look for killer asteroids among other topics) is proceeding in its design and construction (it will be located in northern Chile) and just received a 30-million gift from Bill Gates and Charles Simonyi.

[Mark Adler]

No, because the asteroid is coming from the direction of the Sun relative to Mars. There is too much glare.

So don't look in that direction. (Learned from the Henny Youngman school of medicine: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this.", doctor: "Then don't do that!")

At closest approach it won't be in the Sun direction anyway, and just after the flyby, you'll be looking away from the Sun, with the object nicely lit by the Sun. After the flyby is when you really want to track it anyway, since errors before the flyby are amplified by the gravity assist.

[Doc]

Been doing some calculations on the effects of a possible impact (please, let it hit!).

If this impact produces a blast of 1.6 megatons then that would be equivalent to
more than 3,500,000,000 pounds of explosives. With reference to an seismicity explosives equivalent table, this is equivalent to a magnitude 6.5 to 7.0 earthquake
(similar to the one that hit Kobe, Japan in 1998). This is way beyond the Hiroshima bomb and such a boom is more than capable to cause significant mass wasting at Opportunity's site.

This is just an observation and is still at the mercy of the now falling chances for impact.

[Holder of the Tw...]

Couple more observations reported now by Calar Alto Observatory.

The nominal miss distance has moved inward slightly toward Mars.

Apparently, there is still some possibility of an impact, although I have no idea what the odds are now.

And this baby keeps getting fainter and fainter, with fewer and fewer facilities able to spot it.

[slinted]

From the NEO office, based on the 2 newest observations:
Mars Impact Seems Less Likely

As mentioned in the article, the miss distance isn't changing much with additional observations, but the cone is tightening.
Closest approaches in Horizons for the nominal solution are 30,366 km from the center of Mars at 2008-Jan-30 12:05.