Sunday, February 10, 2013

visible asteroid 2012 DA14

on feb 15/16, a little chunk of rock (45 meters = 150 feet across), known as asteroid 2012 DA14, which has been orbiting around the sun for a long time on a not-quite-circular orbit, will pass close by the earth. 

Photo Credit: NASA

actually, asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass very close to the earth - only 17,200 miles (27,680 kilometers) away, which is closer than the moon's orbit and even closer than some high-orbiting communications satellites!

but do not worry, asteroid 2012 DA14 will not hit earth

Photo Credit: NASA via Calgary Herald

the asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye, but should be visible using binoculars to many people across the planet, if you know where and when to look.  check out satflare.com or http://www.heavens-above.com/ to see if it will be visible where you are. 

2 comments:

SMS said...

May be a mistake while calculating date of 21.12 .2012 there is a difference of two months only , calculated 5000 years ago

tonyon said...

...a possible solution... INCREASING ITS SPEED, gives it a shove, TOWARDS A SIDE IF THERE ARE LITTLE TIME, to what speed gives it thrust towards a side for deflecting it?...speed = space/time...so if want that it passing "close shaving" to 1,000 kms from Earth = 1 million mts, and having approx. 11 days = 1 million seconds, the correction speed will be of: 6,000 kms approx. Earth radius + 1,000 kms = 7,000 kms; 7 million mts/1 million seconds = 7 mts/second (25 kms/hour). If it increases forwards speed, it climbs to a higher orbit, and vice versa: radius = (mass*speed²)/force (centripetal) from Sun gravitational attraction.