Thursday, October 22, 2015

NASA Spots the 'Great Pumpkin': Halloween Asteroid a Treat for Radar Astronomers

Halloween is coming and maybe you will be out in the Pumpkin Patch with Charlie Brown.

When you look up maybe you can catch sight of asteroid 2015 TB145. (with a telescope)

I think we are getting better at finding these asteroids sooner but a good thing it is going to miss and too bad we can't stick a transponder on it.

- LRK -
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NASA Spots the 'Great Pumpkin': Halloween Asteroid a Treat for Radar Astronomers
October 21, 2015

NASA scientists are tracking the upcoming Halloween flyby of asteroid 2015 TB145 with several optical observatories and the radar capabilities of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. The asteroid will fly past Earth at a safe distance slightly farther than the moon's orbit on Oct. 31 at 10:05 a.m. PDT (1:05 p.m. EDT). Scientists are treating the flyby of the estimated 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity, allowing instruments on "spacecraft Earth" to scan it during the close pass.

Asteroid 2015 TB145 was discovered on Oct. 10, 2015, by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS-1 (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) on Haleakala, Maui, part of the NASA-funded Near-Earth Object Observation (NEOO) Program. According to the catalog of near-Earth objects (NEOs) kept by the Minor Planet Center, this is the closest currently known approach by an object this large until asteroid 1999 AN10, at about 2,600 feet (800 meters) in size, approached at about 1 lunar distance (238,000 miles from Earth) in August 2027.

"The trajectory of 2015 TB145 is well understood," said Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than about 300,000 miles -- 480,000 kilometers or 1.3 lunar distances. Even though that is relatively close by celestial standards, it is expected to be fairly faint, so night-sky Earth observers would need at least a small telescope to view it."

The gravitational influence of the asteroid is so small it will have no detectable effect on the moon or anything here on Earth, including our planet's tides or tectonic plates.
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http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html

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As FOX News reports..
Has YouTube and the JPL orbit image.
- LRK -

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Asteroid the size of Empire State Building to pass incredibly close to Earth on Halloween
A massive asteroid is expected to pass by Earth on Halloween in the closest fly-by since 2006.

NASA discovered the asteroid, dubbed 2015 TB145 on Oct. 10 using Pan-STARRS 1.

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NBC-2 - With YouTube and Ad.

- LRK -

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Asteroid to narrowly miss Earth on Halloween

Posted: Oct 21, 2015 8:09 AM PDT 
Updated: Oct 21, 2015 8:10 AM PDT

(CNN) -- Don't look now, but an asteroid is heading our way on Halloween.

On the other hand, go ahead and look. As it misses Earth by about 300,000 miles (slightly farther away than the moon), the asteroid, named 2015 TB145, will be visible to those with good telescopes -- and NASA, which announced the discovery.

Calling it "one of the best radar targets of the year," a Jet Propulsion Laboratory report on the asteroid said that "the flyby presents a truly outstanding scientific opportunity to study the physical properties of this object."

The asteroid will be traveling through Orion on October 30-31.

It's a good thing it will miss, though. The asteroid is estimated to be 300 to 600 meters wide and traveling at 78,000 mph. By comparison, the meteorite that exploded in the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013 was about 20 meters wide.

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Thanks for looking up with me, 
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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