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Detection of incoming asteroids?

Kaptain Klevtsov

By Kaptain Klevtsov
in The Astro Lounge

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Kaptain Klevtsov

Kaptain Klevtsov

Posted
Posted

Seeing as we're possibly on track to watch an impact on Mars at the end of January, it struck me that the guilty object was only discovered in November this year. That's about 10 weeks from the "oh poo" moment to the very loud noises, which doesn't seem long enough to mount any kind of defense. If this is a "too small to really worry about" sized object, or if "they" are watching specifically for Earthbound objects, then OK.

Anybody know how long we would get between the discovery and the impact for a doomsday sized one?

Kaptain Klevtsov

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Vega

Vega

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I think more of the larger one's are already discovered and being tracked (with the exception of comets from outside the asteroid belt). Larger 'global killers' thankfully show themselves a bit more in advance and are easier to detect. These smaller one's however are the worrying one's .. although this Mars asteroid is not large enough to destroy the planet or even a continent, it would completely obliterate a large city. It could cause a whole Country to evacuate... just imagine the panic and chaos! :shock:

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saturn5

saturn5

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Personally i just want a front seat to enjoy the show...

Who cares ! It's not as if anything could be done to stop so like Jamie said ......... Pull up a seat and watch !

Karlo

Not much to enjoy if it lands in your vicinity,more like sit back and fill your underwear. :rolleyes::lol:

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Jamie

Jamie

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Not much to enjoy if it lands in your vicinity,more like sit back and fill your underwear. :rolleyes::lol:

I beg to differ on this one mate.

Yes my underwear would be rendered useless PDQ..... BUT!

I would prefer to see/be part of the greatest astronomical spectacle that mankind will ever experience rather than just be caught up in the aftermath and die of starvation....

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Astroman

Astroman

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Rik Hill, a friend of mine in Tucson, is a member of the Catalina Sky Survey run by Lunar and Planetary Labs out of the University of Arizona. The survey is currently tracking several thousand objects on a nightly basis to determine as much about them as possible in order to assess any threats. A 1.5 meter telescope atop Mt. Lemon in Tucson, coupled with a 0.5m scope in Siding Springs Observatory in Australia. Their initial objective was to catalog objects >1km within range of Earth Orbit and was expanded to objects >140m in 2006. In a conversation with him back in May of this year, Rik told me the CSS has discovered more near Earth Asteroids since being commissioned in 1998 than all other similar surveys combined. (Mostly, this is due to a "tortoise and hare scenario viz a viz other surveys.)

Close asteroids have already been "tagged" and are monitored almost daily from both sides of the planet. Any new objects will follow and be monitored. The amount of notification time between discovery, observation, orbit and threat calculation could be as short as a week and as long as several years. New objects are monitored during the night to assess as quickly as possible whether they're a threat or not, so by the time you go to bed and wake up the next day, a new object will be assessed as a threat or no, with enough accuracy to predict where it will be next year within several Earth/Moon radii.

I doubt very much the Earth would be notified the day before an event was imminent. It'd be more like a couple years, though the location of any impact would change within that time.

HTH

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/css/index.html

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