Asteroid the ‘Size of a Minivan’ Exploded Over California
The source of loud “booms” accompanied by a bright object traveling through the skies of Nevada and California on Sunday morning has been confirmed: it was a meteor. A big one.
coooooooool
Posts tagged asteroid.
Rosetta’s Closest Asteroid Flyby Photos (July 10, 2010)
The Rosetta spacecraft took its first close-up images of the asteroid Lutetia on July 2010, revealing it to be a heavily cratered, elongated rock.
Image: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
(via uraniaproject)
Scientists used color data obtained by the Dawn spacecraft to show the asteroid Vesta’s southern hemisphere in color.
Vesta is the second-most massive object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
(via jtotheizzoe)
Bus-Size Asteroid to Give Earth Close Shave
A small asteroid will make an extremely close pass by Earth (right about NOW!!!), coming much nearer than the moon, but the space rock poses no danger of impacting our planet, NASA scientists say.
OHMAIGAWD we’re all going to die.
A View of Asteroid 2005 YU55 Passing By Earth
As was widely covered yesterday, a 400 meter-wide asteroid made of coal-black rock passed between the Earth and the Moon yesterday. Most people on Earth probably didn’t notice. That’s because you needed a pretty significant telescope in order to see it.
The sequence above shows the asteroid traversing right to left by a group in New Mexico.
Is video more your thing? Check out this sequence made by Jason Ware of Plano, TX:
we didn’t die
Giant asteroid to pass near Earth
An asteroid that is 400m (1,300ft) wide will pass by the Earth on Tuesday, closer to it even than the Moon.
It poses no danger to the Earth and it will be invisible to the naked eye.
Asteroid 2005 YU55’s closest approach, at a distance of 325,000km (202,000mi), will be at 23:28 GMT. It is the closest the asteroid has been in 200 years.
It is also the largest space rock fly-by the Earth has seen since 1976; the next visit by such a large asteroid will be in 2028.
The aircraft-carrier-sized asteroid is darkly coloured in visible wavelengths and nearly spherical, lazily spinning about once every 20 hours as it races through our neighbourhood of the Solar System.
If you wanna see it, check out the MSNBC article How to get a peek at 2005 YU55 as it zips close to Earth.
WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
(via fyeahcarlsagan)
NASA Prepares for Asteroid’s Close Pass
On Tuesday, November 8, at 6:28 p.m. EST, an asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier will soar past our planet at a distance closer than the Moon… and NASA scientists will be watching!
2005 YU55, a 400-meter (1,300-foot) -wide C-type asteroid, was discovered in December 2005 by Robert McMillan of the Spacewatch Program at the University of Arizona, Tucson. It’s pretty much spherical in shape and dark – darker than charcoal, in fact! Scientists with NASA’s Near-Earth Objects Observation Program will begin tracking it on November 4 using the 70-meter radar telescope at the Deep Space Network in Goldstone, California , as well as with the Arecibo Planetary Radar Facility in Puerto Rico beginning November 8. They will continue tracking 2005 YU55 through November 10.
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Other than the excitement it will most likely cause amongst radar astronomers, 2005 YU55 will have no physical effect on our planet.
(via uraniaproject)
Dark shadows help define craters on the face of the large asteroid Vesta, named for the Roman virgin goddess of hearth and home, in a picture released August 22.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft snapped the shot from the satellite’s orbit around Vesta. The space rock is part of our solar system’s main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The massive asteroid is considered a protoplanet, a would-be planet whose growth was interrupted in infancy by the formation of Jupiter.
Looks like Earth has some company in orbit. A “Trojan” asteroid, one that shares its orbit with another celestial body, has been found associated with Earth. This piggy-backing rock, named 2010 TK7, is about 300 meters across and exists about 50 million miles from Earth.
While common for other planets and moons, this marks the first time we have seen a Trojan that shares Earth’s path. Don’t worry, no chance of us running into it.
(via NASA)
(via jtotheizzoe)
Boner Dust.
Suzanna.
Lost on my way to life.
I collect postcards and would love to do a postcard exchange with each and every one of my followers.
Also, I love ducks.
Lost on my way to life.
I collect postcards and would love to do a postcard exchange with each and every one of my followers.
Also, I love ducks.
