NEWS
11 January 2010 On day January 13 the asteroid 2010 AL30 will be at only 0.0009 A.U. from the Earth. It's diameter is 18 meters. Data from JPL-Nasa 2010 AL30 Earth MOID = 0.0000 AU Epoch 2010 Jan. 4.0 TT = JDT 2455200.5 MPC M 281.43768 (2000.0) P Q n 0.98334316 Peri. 104.60262 -0.78961396 +0.61037025 a 1.0015347 Node 113.05293 -0.58600666 -0.71972363 e 0.3058516 Incl. 3.92050 -0.18195053 -0.33082632 P 1.00 H 27.1 G 0.15 U 5 Date TT R. A. (2000) Decl. Delta r Elong. Phase V 2010 01 12.0 07 43.96 +09 26.4 0.00863 0.992 167.4 12.4 17.5 2010 01 12.1 07 42.35 +09 31.4 0.00808 0.991 167.6 12.3 17.4 2010 01 12.2 07 40.50 +09 37.3 0.00752 0.991 167.8 12.1 17.2 2010 01 12.3 07 38.35 +09 44.0 0.00697 0.990 168.0 11.9 17.0 2010 01 12.4 07 35.82 +09 51.8 0.00641 0.990 168.2 11.7 16.8 2010 01 12.5 07 32.82 +10 01.0 0.00586 0.989 168.4 11.6 16.6 2010 01 12.6 07 29.19 +10 12.0 0.00531 0.989 168.5 11.5 16.4 2010 01 12.7 07 24.70 +10 25.4 0.00476 0.988 168.5 11.5 16.2 2010 01 12.8 07 19.04 +10 42.0 0.00421 0.988 168.3 11.6 15.9 2010 01 12.9 07 11.66 +11 02.9 0.00366 0.987 167.9 12.1 15.6 2010 01 13.0 07 01.68 +11 30.1 0.00312 0.987 166.8 13.1 15.3 2010 01 13.1 06 47.49 +12 06.4 0.00258 0.986 164.7 15.2 15.0 2010 01 13.2 06 25.91 +12 56.2 0.00206 0.986 160.7 19.2 14.6 2010 01 13.3 05 50.02 +14 03.5 0.00157 0.985 153.1 26.8 14.3 2010 01 13.4 04 43.89 +15 13.7 0.00114 0.984 138.1 41.9 14.0 2010 01 13.5 02 42.12 +14 13.6 0.00088 0.984 109.5 70.5 14.3 2010 01 13.6 00 15.43 +07 58.5 0.00094 0.983 73.6 106.3 15.9 2010 01 13.7 22 41.30 +01 57.1 0.00128 0.983 50.0 129.9 18.3 2010 01 13.8 21 51.70 -01 26.8 0.00174 0.982 37.6 142.3 20.4 2010 01 13.9 21 23.51 -03 21.4 0.00224 0.982 30.7 149.2 22.1 2010 01 14.0 21 05.79 -04 31.7 0.00277 0.981 26.5 153.5 23.4 1 January 2010 On day 13 April 2036 the asteroid Apophis WILL NOT IMPACT the Earth. On the Torino scale the probability is zero. 7 November 2009 This night at 21.32 U.T. a new asteroid has grazed the Earth. The body, denominated 2009 VA, it is passed to only 20000 kms from the center of our planet, around 14000 from the surface. Its diameter of 6 meters would not have constituted a problem however. Dangerous encounters are not calculated in the future, and on the staircase of Torino it has a value zero. Its mass is 3.6*10^5 kg. The orbital parameters are: e .3573882739332184 a 1.428030849867257 AU q .9176693693098114 AU i 7.541919391808355 deg node 224.5419169422727 deg peri 223.9910222045172 deg M 338.9483913019615 deg tp 2455177.949166321584 (2009-Dec-12.44916633) JED period 623.3110288142891 d Earth MOID = .000130783 AU absolute magnitude H = 28.583 --------------------------------------------------- 8 october 2009 Asteroid Impactor Reported over Indonesia Don Yeomans, Paul Chodas, Steve Chesley NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office October 23, 2009 On October 8, 2009 about 03:00 Greenwich time, an atmospheric fireball blast was observed and recorded over an island region of Indonesia. The blast is thought to be due to the atmospheric entry of a small asteroid about 10 meters in diameter that, due to atmospheric pressure, detonated in the atmosphere with an energy of about 50 kilotons (the equivalent of 100,000 pounds of TNT explosives). A report from Elizabeth Silber and Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario indicates that several international very-long wavelength infrasound detectors recorded the blast and fixed the position near the coastal city of Bone in South Sulawesi, island of Sulewesi. They note that the blast was in the 10 to 50 kT range with the higher end of this range being more likely. Assuming an estimated size of about 5-10 meters in diameter, we would expect a fireball event of this magnitude about once every 2 to 12 years on average. As a rule, the most common types of stony asteroids would not be expected to cause ground damage unless their diameters were about 25 meters in diameter or larger. The blast was recorded visually and reported upon by local media representatives. See the YouTube video at: Video ---------- PASADENA, Calif. -- Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields. The new data were documented by near-Earth object scientists Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They will present their updated findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Puerto Rico on Oct. 8. "Apophis has been one of those celestial bodies that has captured the public's interest since it was discovered in 2004," said Chesley. "Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million." A majority of the data that enabled the updated orbit of Apophis came from observations Dave Tholen and collaborators at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy in Manoa made. Tholen pored over hundreds of previously unreleased images of the night sky made with the University of Hawaii's 2.2-meter (88-inch) telescope, located near the summit of Mauna Kea. Tholen made improved measurements of the asteroid's position in the images, enabling him to provide Chesley and Chodas with new data sets more precise than previous measures for Apophis. Measurements from the Steward Observatory's 2.3 meter (90-inch) Bok telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona and the Arecibo Observatory on the island of Puerto Rico also were used in Chesley's calculations. The information provided a more accurate glimpse of Apophis' orbit well into the latter part of this century. Among the findings is another close encounter by the asteroid with Earth in 2068 with chance of impact currently at approximately three-in-a-million. As with earlier orbital estimates where Earth impacts in 2029 and 2036 could not initially be ruled out due to the need for additional data, it is expected that the 2068 encounter will diminish in probability as more information about Apophis is acquired. Initially, Apophis was thought to have a 2.7 percent chance of impacting Earth in 2029. Additional observations of the asteriod ruled out any possibility of an impact in 2029. However, the asteroid is expected to make a record-setting -- but harmless -- close approach to Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029, when it comes no closer than 29,450 kilometers (18,300 miles) above Earth's surface. "The refined orbital determination further reinforces that Apophis is an asteroid we can look to as an opportunity for exciting science and not something that should be feared," said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL. "The public can follow along as we continue to study Apophis and other near-Earth objects by visiting us on our AsteroidWatch Web site and by following us on the @AsteroidWatch Twitter feed." The science of predicting asteroid orbits is based on a physical model of the solar system which includes the gravitational influence of the sun, moon, other planets and the three largest asteroids. NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet. JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., operates the Arecibo Observatory under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.