Asteroid Flyby: 2012 DA14

[photonrider]

Time to dust off those telescopes. Half the size of a football field, this one skims the upper layer of our satellite system, and while not visible to the naked eye may be seen with even a small telescope, so a sight to prepare for. Hope you cosmic diners have good weather that day.

Here's a link:

http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2012-da14-will-pass-very-close-to-earth-in-2013

I am unable to post images right now - I'm sure there are a lot of pics and video out there about this; please bring them here.

Thanks.
H.

 

[Emptyone]

It's a nice wake up call, showing the folly of keeping all our eggs in one basket down on Earth, when something could hit us at any time.

The distance from the Earth when it passes will be 28000km ish, or inside the geosynchronous satellite orbits at 35000km, so a reasonably near miss.

This picture shows it better:

No more than a warning, but a useful one at that.

 

[photonrider]

Someone keeps throwing these big rocks at us.



Thanks, Emptyone. Let's hope more pics come in, especially live shots - Nasa has been tracking this for millions of miles and it's finally here. Apparently could be seen even with a half-decent telescope.

 

[Emptyone]

There are some decent viewing sites apparently, and you only need binoculars, not even a telescope.

The best viewing location for the closest approach will be Indonesia.[2] Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia are also well situated to see the asteroid around its closest approach.

Also in the UK

Given clear skies, it should be possible to track the rock climbing in the north-eastern sky from anywhere in the UK.

DA14 will take two hours to travel between the constellations of Leo and the Plough from 8pm GMT.

Sure Phil Plait at least will have a livestream up for the flyby tomorrow night, it is his sort of thing.

EDIT: Here's a size reference (US Style)

 

[photonrider]

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html

Discussion closed till next fly-by. 👍
Thanks for watching.