* Nearest approach at 2:24 p.m. EST/1924 GMT on Friday
* No chance of impact, scientists say
* Encounter will cause asteroid's orbit to change
By Irene Klotz
BOSTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - A newly discovered asteroid about half the size of a football field will pass nearer to Earth than any other known object of its size on Friday, giving scientists a rare opportunity for close-up observations without launching a probe.
At its closest approach, which will occur at 2:24 p.m. EST/1924 GMT, the asteroid will pass about 17,200 miles (27,520 km) above the planet traveling at 8 miles (13 km) per second, bringing it nearer than the networks of television and weather satellites that ring the planet.
Although Asteroid 2012 DA14 is the largest known object of its size to pass this close, scientists say there is no chance of an impact, this week or in the foreseeable future.
Currently, DA14 matches Earth's year-long orbit around the sun, but after Friday's encounter its flight path will change, said astronomer Donald Yeomans, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
"The close approach will perturb its orbit so that actually instead of having an orbital period of one year, it'll lose a couple of months," Yeomans said. "The Earth is going to put this one in an orbit that is considerably safer," he said.
The non-profit Space Data Association, which tracks satellites for potential collisions, analyzed the asteroid's projected path and determined no spacecraft would be in its way.
"There is no reason to believe that this asteroid poses a threat to any satellites in Earth orbit," Space Data operations manager T.S. Kelso said in a statement.
For scientists, DA14 presents a rare, albeit short, opportunity to study an asteroid close-up. In addition to trying to determine what minerals it contains, which is of potential commercial interest as well as scientific, astronomers want to learn more about the asteroid's spin rate. The information not only will be useful to plotting DA14's future visits but could help engineers develop techniques to thwart more threatening asteroids.
Even in areas that will be dark during DA14's pass by Earth, the asteroid is too dim to be spotted without a telescope or binoculars. NASA plans a half-hour broadcast beginning at 2 p.m. EST/1900 GMT on NASA Television and on its website which will include near real-time views of the asteroid from observatories in Australia, weather permitting.
The space camera, Slooh.com, will incorporate several live feeds, including views from the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, in a webcast beginning Friday at 9 p.m. EST/0200 GMT. (Editing by David Adams and Cynthia Osterman)
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
The asteroid is approx. 50 yards long. Would the path be altered if it collides with a couple dozen satellites?
It is projected to pass inside the satellites, then pass them again when exiting, after the Earth changes it's path, giving it a gravitational slingshot.
I forgot all about this! Where did you ever find the link? I thought it would have been buried so deep in the archives that it would never be retrieved. Thanks.
I forgot all about this! Where did you ever find the link? I thought it would have been buried so deep in the archives that it would never be retrieved. Thanks.
A google search brought me to that site, I remember playing all those old games when I was a kid on my parents ATARI system. Even today I love video games, even though the graphics and gaming today are amazing I still have to play the oldies every now and then.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
this one is crazy as well, at 30sec in there is a LOUD explosion so just a heads up
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
The asteroid is approx. 50 yards long. Would the path be altered if it collides with a couple dozen satellites?
Simple answer is no.
While we don't know the composition of the 'roid, it's moving at 8 miles per second. It would be like thinking a wall of fluffy stuffed animals could alter the path of a fully loaded tractor trailer going 70 mph
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Experts say smaller strikes happen five to 10 times a year. Large impacts such as the one Friday in Russia are rarer but still occur about every five years.Most of these strikes happen in uninhabited areas where they don't cause injuries to humans.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
A meteorite plunged to earth near Chelyabinsk, over 900 miles east of Moscow. WSJ's Greg White reports that hundreds were injured by the explosion but there was no major destruction. Photo: AP
MOSCOW—A meteorite plunged to earth in Russia's Ural Mountains Friday, exploding into flames in a powerful blast that smashed windows and injured around 1,000 people.
Amateur videos broadcast on state television showed an object streaking across the sky trailing smoke around 9:20 a.m. local time before bursting into a fireball. Residents in the city of Chelyabinsk, the largest in the affected region, described a shock wave that blew in doors, smashed glass and set off car alarms.
"The light was so intense that it completely illuminated the courtyard of our apartment block," said Sergei Zakharov, head of the Russian Geographical Society in Chelyabinsk. "The sound, the shock wave came around six minutes later. No one could understand what had happened. I'd compare it to the explosion of a large flare bomb."
A meteorite flew across the sky over Russia's Ural Mountains, showering fragments of rock over the area and causing explosions. More than 400 people were injured as the debris fell to the ground, many of them hurt by broken glass. Photo: Associated Press Asteroid Fly-by
Prior to the unexpected meteorite strike in Russia Friday, scientists had predicted that a separate asteroid would pass by earth, missing by 17,150 miles, in the closest known fly-by for a rock of its size. Read More.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said almost 1,000 people sought medical attention, mostly for cuts from flying glass. Forty-three people were hospitalized with injuries. Around 3,000 buildings were damaged by the blast, which blew a hole in the walls of a metals factory in Chelyabinsk, approximately 1,500 kilometers east of Moscow.
Children were sent home from schools and nurseries, and the explosion temporarily knocked out one mobile operator's network.
The unusual sight sowed confusion among some locals. Amateur video showed children in one school streaming out of a classroom and screaming.
"We didn't understand what was happening. We thought an airplane had crashed," said a woman who answered the phone at the city administration but declined to give her name.
"That kind of light doesn't happen in life, only at the end of the world," Vlada Palagina, a Chelyabinsk schoolteacher, told the LifeNews website.
Officials moved quickly to calm residents, saying there was no threat to human life from the rock fragments. Most of the meteorite burned up before pieces hit the ground outside Chelyabinsk, scientists said.
President Vladimir Putin ordered the emergency situations minister to provide help for those affected.
"There's no major destruction," Chelyabinsk regional Governor Mikhail Yuyevich wrote on his blog. "The main task now is to maintain heat in the apartments and offices where the glass was smashed."
Scientists said the incident was a rare event, both in terms of the size of the rock and the number of injuries it caused.
"There have been reports of one or two people being injured in the past. This is entirely unprecedented," said Keith Smith, an astronomer at Britain's Royal Astronomical Society.
Dr. Smith stressed that there was no connection between the meteor event in Russia and the swimming-pool-sized asteroid that is expected to harmlessly pass about 28,000 kilometers from earth on Friday.
Planetary scientist Samuel Kounaves at Tufts University in Boston also said there likely was no connection between the meteor strike in Russia and the record close approach Friday of asteroid 2012 DA14, a 130,000-ton rock which was expected to narrowly miss the planet by about 17,200 miles. "It probably had nothing to do with the meteorite that hit Russia," he said.
Asteroids are fairly small pieces of rock that go around the sun. A meteoroid is an even smaller piece of debris or particle that goes around the sun. A meteorite, on the other hand, is a meteoroid that survives its atmosphere plunge and lands upon the earth's surface.
Dozens of fragments of the meteorite hit the ground, officials said, and search teams set out looking for remains.
Local police described how one piece smashed into the ground near Lake Chebarkul, throwing up a column of ice, water and steam and creating an eight-meter crater.
The meteorite was several meters in diameter and weighed around 10 metric tons, Russia's Academy of Sciences said in a statement. "The object entered the atmosphere at a speed of 15-20 kilometers per second, disintegrated at a height of 30-50 kilometers. The movement of fragments at large speed caused a powerful emission of light and a strong shock wave," the academy said.
According to the U.S. National Aeronautical and Space Administration, meteoroids smaller than 25 meters (82 feet) usually burn up as they streak through the atmosphere, causing little or no damage.
Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles every day, much of it falling into the oceans or remote areas, and otherwise going unnoticed. About once a year, a car-sized asteroid enters the atmosphere, though it usually burns up before hitting the surface.
It is only every 2,000 years or so that a meteoroid the size of a football field descends to earth and causes significant damage, according to NASA. Giant asteroids that crash to earth—such as the one that most likely extinguished the dinosaurs—tend to occur on the scale of millions of years.
Scientists will likely rush to the site in Russia where the meteoroid was observed. Astronomer Dr. Smith said there has probably been only one case—in Sudan in 2007—where researchers were able to follow the track of a meteor as it came down and recover pieces of it on the ground.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin called for leading world powers to create an early-warning system, and consider technology to shoot down meteorites. Roskosmos, Russia's space agency, said it was impossible to track objects falling as fast as the meteorite. —Robert Lee Hotz contributed to this article.
Write to James Marson at james.marson@dowjones.com and Gautam Naik at gautam.naik@wsj.com
(Reuters) - A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, sending fireballs crashing to earth which shattered windows and damaged buildings, injuring more than 500 people.
People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave, according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 950 miles east of Moscow.
The fireball, travelling at a speed of 19 miles per second according to Russia's space agency Roscosmos, had blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 125 miles away.
Car alarms went off, windows broke and mobile phone networks were interrupted. The Interior Ministry said the meteor explosion had caused a sonic boom.
"I was driving to work, it was quite dark, but it suddenly became as bright as if it was day," said Viktor Prokofiev, 36, a resident of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains.
"I felt like I was blinded by headlights," he said.
No fatalities were reported, but President Vladimir Putin, who was due to host Finance Ministry officials from the Group of 20 nations in Moscow, told Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov to help those affected.
"Unfortunately, the normal work of some industrial enterprises was disrupted, people have suffered as has social infrastructure - kindergartens, schools," Putin told his Emergencies Minister Sergei Puchkov in televised comments.
"First of all, it is necessary to think about how to help the people, and not only to think about it, but to do it immediately," Putin said.
A local ministry official said such incidents were extremely rare and Friday's events might have been linked to an asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool due to pass earth. However, the European Space Agency on its Twitter website said its experts had confirmed there was no connection.
"There have never been any cases of meteorites breaking up at such a low level over Russia before," said Yuri Burenko, head of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Emergencies Ministry.
Russia's Emergencies Ministry said 514 people had sought medical help, mainly for light injuries caused by flying glass, and that 112 of them were kept in hospital.
Despite warnings not to approach any unidentified objects, some enterprising locals were hoping to cash in.
"Selling meteorite that fell on Chelyabinsk!," one prospective seller, Vladimir, said on a popular Russian auction website. He attached a picture of a black piece of stone that on Friday afternoon was priced at $49.46.
WINDOWS BREAK, FRAMES BUCKLE
The blast at around 9.20 a.m. (12:20 a.m. ET) shattered windows on Chelyabinsk's central Lenin Street and some of the frames of shop fronts buckled. The shockwave could be felt in apartment buildings in the city's center.
"I was standing at a bus stop, seeing off my girlfriend," said Andrei, a local resident who did not give his second name. "Then there was a flash and I saw a trail of smoke across the sky and felt a shockwave that smashed windows."
Chelyabinsk city authorities urged people to stay indoors unless they needed to pick up their children from schools and kindergartens. They said what sounded like a blast had been heard at an altitude of 32,800 feet.
A wall was damaged at the Chelyabinsk Zinc Plant but a spokeswoman said there was no environmental threat.
Although a rare occurrence, a meteorite is thought to have devastated an area of more than 1,250 miles in Siberia in 1908, smashing windows as far as 125 miles from the point of impact.
The Emergencies Ministry described Friday's events as a "meteor shower in the form of fireballs" and said background radiation levels were normal. It urged residents not to panic.
Simon Goodwin, an astrophysics expert from Britain's University of Sheffield, said it was estimated between 1,000 and 10,000 tonnes of material rained down from space onto the earth every day, but most burned up in the atmosphere.
"While events this big are rare, an impact that could cause damage and death could happen every century or so," he said. "Unfortunately there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop impacts."
The meteor struck just as an asteroid known as 2012 DA14, about 46 meters in diameter was due to pass closer to earth than any other known object of its size since scientists began routinely monitoring them about 15 years ago.
The small asteroid was expected to pass at a distance of 17,100 miles from earth on Friday.
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow, Writing by Alexei Anishchuk and Timothy Heritage, Editing by Michael Holden)
The meteor, asteroid, and meteor showers were NOT RELATED, even though they all happened within hours of each other. Don't panic, we will sooth you with lies.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Logged
Thanks.
