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Anybody out tonight looking for the asteroid?

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Asteroid YU-55 should pass by tonight - about the size of a battleship at 400m diameter.

I'm going out to look - should be visible in any scope 150mm or better. www.skyandtelescope.com for observing charts - it is passing through Pegasus, by the way!

Actually, Imperial College London, and Purdue University Indiana have a very nice page offering an Impact Effects Calculator. You can see from this that a 400 m projectile hitting at 18 km/sec has an impact energy of some 3800 megatons. Enough to set clothes, trees and vegetation on fire from 60 km away. The "kill zone" would be 120 - 150 km in diameter (some 10,000 square km - London is 600 sq km by comparison). An ocean strike isn't any better. 60 km off shore in 500 m of water, you generate a 100m tsunami!

See Impact Calculator <HERE>

Can't sleep after playing with this fun on-line toy anyway, so why not watch the asteroid pass by??? :)

"I am become Death - the Destroyer of Worlds!" -- J.R. Oppenheimer on seeing the first atomic blast in 1945.

Dan

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Cheer us up, why don't you!

A rock this size would not be hard to deflect -- IF we had proper notice. The only real defenses against such an event are two-fold:

1. an active professional and amateur space exploration program. As amateur astronomers, we contribute out part - but we must also vote in the chaps who understand (and act on) these issues.

2. Space colonization - preferrably Mars and Luna. Consider that every species (and civilization) to flourish here has died out here.

There is no immortality for our species or our civilization on the Home Planet. Only exploring the 'High Frontier' can save us from the inevitable 'Big Rock' from space.

Dan

PS: Our President here in the States crushed our manned space program and pooh-poohs space exploration and colonies. :)

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John

John

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Blimey I'm looking for my first scope and sounds like I don't need one.

So where abouts is this likely to go pop, My understanding is that its more likely to hit the moon rather than us lot:confused:

Si.

It's not going to hit anywhere as far as I'm aware - it's closest approach will be around 200,000 miles :)

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Astronut1982

Astronut1982

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Total cloud cover up here in Edinburgh as well :)

I went out last night to my dark site to view it last night as the forecast siad clear skies. It took 40 mins to drive out there. About 5 mins before I got there I noticed the clouds coming in, by the time I'd gotten there was nothing but clouds! :)

To say I was gutted is an understatement. If it was cloudy before I left it wouldn't have been so bad, I would've at least saved some time & petrol. Why do the clouds always wait till I get there?

I'm just hoping it clears sometime this week so I can see it!

Jeff

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Sorry if I gave anyone the impression that the rock was going to strike - - no chance of that with THIS one. The impact calculator is just a bit of macabre fun. Still, I hope it motivates us as a community to ask serious questions of those who are running for public office. :)

That said, I would love to see a fairly big one strike the near side of the Moon - or maybe out in the Mojave desert where I could go and look for chunks and bits! :)

Dan

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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That said, I would love to see a fairly big one strike the near side of the Moon - or maybe out in the Mojave desert where I could go and look for chunks and bits! :)

If an asteroid this big struck the moon or the Mojave, there wouldnt be much of either left. A HUGE chunk of the Moon would be gone and i'm pretty sure the Mojave would no longer exist (as we know it).

Lets not confuse asteroids with meteors. Meteors hit the earth and moon on a very regular basis. Asteroids are like meteors on steroids. You know when you've been asteroided.

I bet the view of this one from the moon are amazing. Its passing within 50,000 miles of the moon.

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cantab

cantab

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To the Moon, such an asteroid wouldn't be all that. The calculator gives a crater about 4 miles wide for the "average" impact velocity. OK that's for Earth, but still, we'd see such a crater in our telescopes but it's small really.

Ditto the Mojave. After the asteroidal winter has calmed down, the Mojave's still staying much as it is.

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aa6ww

aa6ww

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I definately tried. I had my C11 on the exact area where the asteroid was suppose to cross. I know I was dead on where I should have seen it but no way. My polar alignment was dead on and there was absolutely no movement in the eyepiece of any dim object in the field of view. I was using my 26 nagler and earlier, found a 12th mag star so I know I was able to see the 11th mag asteroid. Oh well, it was pretty fun trying. 3 hrs later, Im back inside.

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I think Oppenhiemer actually said 'Damn! That was loud!' after witnessing the first atomic explosion. :)

TheThing

Oppy said no such thing... that was Feynman! :)

My skies were clear last night, but the Moon defeated us with its brilliance. It was hard to even pick out the great square of Pegasus - the asteroid was a no-show.

Dan

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