Next Friday a 46m (151 feet) diameter asteroid is going to be making a fly-by of Earth. The microscopic aliens who inhabit the little world, roughly the mass of an aircraft carrier, have prepared their miniature cameras to get nice snaps of the weird ‘big people’ below as we go about our daily lives. We’ll be watching too.
The asteroid, poetically dubbed 2012 DA14 in accordance with the naming convention, will pass within 27,680 km (17,200 mi) of Earth. Geosynchronous orbit is at 36,000km, so this visitor will actually pass between the orbit of various GPS and TV satellites and Earth. NASA scientists assure there is no chance of collision.
It will zip past at around 27,000 km/h (17,500 mph), and should be visible through binoculars and telescopes.
The best viewing location will be Indonesia, but Australian watchers should get a pretty good view as well. It will be visible from around 0624 Australian Eastern Daylight Time (i.e. Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra etc) on February 16 – that 524am for us Brisbanites (that’s our Saturday morning). The asteroid should be visible as a small star moving against the background of stars.
A telescope at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville will broadcast its view of the event from 6pm to 9pm USA ET on February 15.
Conventional wisdom says that asteroids of around 50m in diameter pass by Earth every 40 years or so, but are only expected to impact the Earth around every 1200 years.
The asteroid is thought to be similar in size to the object that exploded over Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908. The shockwave levelled hundreds of square kilometres of forest. Whether an asteroid makes impact or detonates in mid-air is down to its composition. The Tunguska explosion was thought to result from a rocky asteroid, as opposed to more metallic asteroids that have more structural integrity and stay intact up to impact.
This is the closest approach on record to Earth for an asteroid of its size.
Observations from the fly-by will hopefully gives clues on the asteroids composition and structure.
Any plans to watch the asteroid fly past?
Cross-posted at chrismcmahons blog.
Mad Genius Club 
12 responses to “Astronomical visitors – Hello 2012 DA14”
“Any plans to watch the asteroid fly past?”
I’m afraid I’ll be at work. *sigh* I miss all the fun stuff working 1600-midnight Eastern time.
I’ll try to get up and watch it here. I’ll need to see if I can get more details on what quadrant of the sky to watch. Be interesting to see what saw it next week.
The recorded footage should be available on numerous sites, I’d say (after its made its pass).
Actually, the Space Marines have announced they will be doing a training flight, so watch for explosions.
LOL. Woe to the tiny aliens:)
Am I totally evil because in the secret darkness of my heart I wish the rock would hit the earth, on an area of continent?
Well, depends. Can we get the good stuff out of the museum(s) and archive(s) first? [Starts humming “Falling Down on New Jersey”]
It would be pretty cool to have a repeat of Tunguska – this time captured on video. That way it can ‘hit’ Earth, but hopefully leave nothing but an awesome swath of vegetative destruction. Maybe then we can get more funding for near-earth observations & research into avoidance.
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Alas, I’m in the wrong hemisphere and we are forecast to have clouds and snow during the asteroid’s passage. My track record for observing things of astronomical interest has been pretty poor this past 12 months (clouds, full moon, on wrong side of planet).
I keep meaning to watch the ISS go past on the days its visible from south-east Queensland, but I haven’t managed to get myself organised. Every time I check the fly-pasts they are a like a week away, then I get distracted:)
The ISS! I saw it one time when it was visible from Michigan just after sunset. It was moving steadily west to east, and the sun was still shining on it until it was about half-way across the sky. So neat to watch it and think that people put that up there and were inside it at that moment.