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Science

Panich52

(5,829 posts) Tue Apr 21, 2015, 12:36 PM Apr 2015

Asteroid just missed Earth on Tuesday

EarthSky

On Tuesday morning according to U.S. clocks – at approximately 3 a.m. CDT, or 8 UTC – a small and very faint asteroid passed just 0.2 lunar distances or 45,600 miles (73,400 km) above Earth’s surface. That’s about twice as far as geostationary satellites. The Mt. Lemmon Survey, based in Tucson, Arizona, first saw this asteroid three days ago, on April 18.

The asteroid was expected to reach climb briefly to magnitude +13.2 – much too faint to see with the eye alone. The Virtual Telescope Project viewed the asteroid last night and provided the image above. Read their report. http://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2015/04/21/near-earth-asteroid-2015-hd1-extremely-close-encounter-amazing-image-20-apr-2015/

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http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-will-miss-earth-tuesday-morning?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=5c8c415ec7-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-5c8c415ec7-393525109

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Asteroid just missed Earth on Tuesday (Original Post) Panich52 Apr 2015 OP

That was just a test asteroid. The next one might do the trick! freshwest Apr 2015 #1

Chelyabinsk was a wakeup call Warpy Apr 2015 #2

freshwest

(53,661 posts)

1. That was just a test asteroid. The next one might do the trick!

Reply to Panich52 (Original post)

Tue Apr 21, 2015, 02:44 PM

Apr 2015

Okay, just kidding:

A profession for patient people:

Warpy

(111,261 posts)

2. Chelyabinsk was a wakeup call

Reply to freshwest (Reply #1)

Tue Apr 21, 2015, 05:39 PM

Apr 2015

and we'll likely never see the one that finally nails us coming.

I actually think it's better like that until/unless we have the technology to create a planetary defense system to bounce them back into space.

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