verus rex
Wandering Soul
- #1
BARELY two weeks after the failure of a doomsday prediction by a United States (U.S.) based preacher, Russia and U.S. scientists are at war over another perceived threat to human existence.
The danger this time is not an apocalyptic occurrence, but the smacking of the Earth by a giant asteroid in five months time.
The potentially perilous space rock is known as Asteroid 2005 YU55, a round mini-world that is about 1,300 feet (400 metres) in diametre.
According to U.S. scientists, this asteroid will approach the Earth within a scant 0.85 lunar distances in early November.
Due to its size, and the way it will whisk by so close to the Earth, an extensive campaign of radar, visual and infrared observations are being planned.
U.S. scientists say there is no cause for alarm, but the Russians have issued a report saying there’s something to fear.
NASA rejects the Russian report, calling the chances of the asteroid hitting the Earth ‘minuscule’.
Asteroid 2005 YU55 was discovered by Spacewatch at the University of Arizona, Tucson’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory on December 28, 2005.
According to Spacewatch, the asteroid is “en route and headed our way, the cosmic Wanderer is another reminder about life here on our sitting duck of a planet’.
“The close Earth approach of 2005 YU55, on November 8, is unusual since it is close and big. On average, one wouldn’t expect an object this big to pass this close but every 30 years,” said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Programme Office and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Yeomans said that with new radar capabilities at Goldstone in California — part of NASA’s Deep Space Network — there is a good chance of obtaining radar imaging of 2005 YU55 down to the five-meter resolution level. Doing so, he said, would mean obtaining higher spatial resolution of the object than that attained by recent spacecraft flyby missions.
“So, we like to think of this opportunity as a close flyby mission with Earth as the spacecraft,” Yeomans told SPACE.com. “When combined with ground-based optical and near-infrared observations, the radar data should provide a fairly complete picture of one of the larger potentially hazardous asteroids,” he said.
Asteroid 2005 YU55 is a slow rotator. Because of its size and proximity to Earth, the Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has designated the space rock as a “potentially hazardous asteroid”.
“We’re already preparing for the 2005 YU55 flyby,” said Lance Benner, a research scientist at JPL and a specialist on radar imaging of near-Earth objects. He said part of the plan was to observe the asteroid with radar, using both the huge Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico and equipment at Goldstone.
“The asteroid will approach from the south, so Goldstone has the first chance to observe it due to its declination coverage,” Benner said.
To help coordinate the observing campaigns, “Radar Observations Planning” websites have been set up for the unusual occasion, Benner said.
“This flyby will be the closest by any near-Earth asteroid with an absolute magnitude this bright since 1976 and until 2028,” Benner added. “Nobody saw 2010 XC15 during its close flyby, within 0.5 lunar distances, in 1976.”
U.S., Russia fight over asteroid that could destroy Earth
