An asteroid bigger than an aircraft carrier will dart between the Earth and moon on Tuesday - the closest encounter by such a huge rock in 35 years, Associated Press writes.But scientists say not to worry. It won't hit.
"We're extremely confident, 100 percent confident, that this is not a threat," said the manager of NASA's Near Earth Object Program, Don Yeomans. "But it is an opportunity."
The asteroid named 2005 YU55 is being watched by ground antennas as it approaches from the direction of the sun. The last time it came within so-called shouting distance was 200 years ago.
Closest approach will occur at 6:28 p.m. EST Tuesday when the asteroid passes within 202,000 miles of Earth. That's closer than the roughly 240,000 miles between the Earth and the moon.
The moon will be just under 150,000 miles from the asteroid at the time of closest approach.
Both the Earth and moon are safe — "this time," said Jay Melosh, professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue University.
If 2005 YU55 were to plow into the home planet, it would blast out a crater four miles across and 1,700 feet deep, according to Melosh's calculations. Think a magnitude-7 earthquake and 70-foot-high tsunami waves.
Scientists have been tracking the slowly spinning, spherical, dark-colored object since its discovery in 2005, and are positive it won't do any damage.
The asteroid stretches a quarter-mile across. Smaller objects come close all the time, Yeomans noted, but nothing this big will have ventured so close since 1976. And nothing this large will again until 2028.
Amateur astronomers would need a 6-inch-or-bigger telescope and know exactly where to look to spot it.
-Marcia Dunn, Associated Press
About the Image: Image of asteroid 2005 YUFF taken in April 2010 by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico and provided by NASA/Cornell/Arecibo.
1 comment:
so how about telling us exactly where to aim our scopes, or is that too much of an effort?
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