Asteroids Archives

May 29, 2014December 23, 2015 by David Dickinson

Will an Asteroid Smack Jupiter in 2022?

PHA asteroid 2014 KM4 on approach to Jupiter in late 2021. Credit: the Solar System Dynamics JPL Small-Body Database Browser.

A recent space rock discovery has sent a minor buzz through the community that tracks such objects. And as usual, it has also begun to attract the dubious attention of those less than honorable sites — we won’t dignify them with links — that like to trumpet gloom and doom, and we thought we’d set the record straight, or at very least, head the Woo off at the pass as quickly as possible.

The asteroid in question is 2014 KM4. Discovered earlier this month, this 192 metre space rock safely passed by the Earth-Moon system at 0.17 A.U.s distant on April 21^st. No real biggie, as asteroids pass lots closer all the time. For example, we just had a 6-metre asteroid named 2014 KC45 pass about 48,000 miles (about 80,000 kilometres) from the Earth yesterday morning. That’s about twice the distance of the orbit of geosynchronous satellites and 20% the distance to the Moon.

Sure, it’s a dangerous universe out there… you only have to stand in the Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona outside of Flagstaff or watch the videos of a meteor exploding over Chelyabinsk last year the day after Valentine’s Day to know that. But what makes 2014 KM4 interesting is its orbit and its potential to approach Jupiter in about seven years.

Or not. One dilemma with orbital mechanics is that the precision of a known orbital path relies on the number of observations made and that position gets more and more uncertain as we project an object’s position ahead in space and time. 2014 KM4 is on a 5.08 year orbit inclined 5.2 degrees to the ecliptic plane that brings it juuusst inside the Earth’s orbit — hence the Apollo designation — and out to an aphelion point very near Jupiter at 5.2 A.U.s from the Sun. But that’s only based on 14 observations made over a span of 5 days. The current nominal trajectory sees 2014 KM4 pass about 0.1 A.U. or 15.5 million kilometres from Jupiter on January 16^th 2022. That’s inside the orbit of Jupiter’s outermost moons, but comfortably outside of the orbit of the Galilean moons. The current chance of 2014 KM4 actually impacting Jupiter sits at around 1% and the general trend for these kinds of measurements is for the probability to go down as better observations are made. This is just what happened last year when comet 2013 A1 Siding Spring was discovered to pass very close to Mars later this year on October 19th.

We caught up with JPL astronomer Amy Mainzer, Principal Investigator on the NEOWISE project currently hunting for Near Earth Asteroids for her thoughts on the subject.

“The uncertainty in this object’s orbit is huge since it only has a 5 day observational arc,” Mainzer told Universe Today. “A quick check of the JPL NEO orbit page shows that the uncertainty in its semi-major axis is a whopping 0.47 astronomical units! That’s a huge uncertainty.”

“At this point, any possibility of impact with Jupiter is highly uncertain and probably not likely to happen. But it does point out why it’s so important to extend observational arcs out so that we can extend the arc far enough out so that future observers can nab an object when it makes its next appearance.”

Jupiter takes a beating from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Credit: NASA/Hubble Space Telescope team.

IF (that less than 1% “IF”) 2014 KM4 were to hit Jupiter, it would represent the most distant projection ahead in time of such an event. About two decades ago, humanity had a front row seat to the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter in July 1994. At an estimated 192 metres in size, 2014 KM4 is about the size of the “D” fragment that hit Jupiter on July 17^th 1994. 2014 KM4 has an absolute magnitude (for asteroids, this is how bright they’d appear at 1 A.U. distant) of +21.3 and is currently well placed for follow up observations in the constellation Virgo.

And astronomer Nick Howes mentioned to Universe Today that the Faulkes Telescope North may soon be used to make further observations of 2014 KM4. In the meantime, you can enjoy the animation of their observations of another Near-Earth Asteroid, 2014 KP4.

An animation of the motion of PHA asteroid 2014 KP4. Credit: Remanzacco Observatory.

And yes, the 2022 pass of 2014 KM4 near Jupiter will modify the orbit of the asteroid… but not in our direction. Jupiter is a great “goal tender” in this regard, protecting the inner solar system from incoming hazards.

2014 KM4 is well worth keeping an eye on, but will most likely vanish from interest until it returns to our neck of the solar system in 2065. And no, a killer asteroid won’t hit the Earth in 2045, as a CNN iReport (since removed) stated earlier this week… on “March 35^th” no less. Pro-tip for all you conspiracy types out there that think “Big NASA” is secretly hiding the next “big one” from the public: when concocting the apocalypse, please refer to a calendar for a fictional date that at least actually exists!

May 22, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Amateur Asteroid Hunters Take Note: NASA and Slooh Will Ask For Your Help

Artist's impression of an asteroid breaking up. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Do you lack a telescope, but have a burning desire to look for asteroids near Earth? No problem! NASA and the Slooh telescope network will soon have you covered, as the two entities have signed a new agreement allowing citizen scientists to look at these objects using Slooh.

This is all related to NASA’s Asteroid Grand Challenge (which includes the agency’s desire to capture and redirect an asteroid for further study.) What the two entities want to do is show citizen astronomers how to study asteroids after they are discovered by professionals, looking at properties such as their size and rotation and light reflectivity.

Additionally, Slooh will add 10 new telescopes to the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, the facility it is using until at least 2020. The hope is to add to the total of 10,957 discovered near-Earth asteroids, which include 1,472 that are “potentially hazardous.” Astronomers believe only about 30% of the 140-meter sized asteroids near Earth have been discovered, and less than 1% of 30-meter sized asteroids. (Bigger ones more than a kilometer across are about 90% discovered.)

Screenshot from a live webcast from SLOOH Space Camera.

We talk about Slooh frequently on Universe Today because it is one of the go-to locations for live events happening in the cosmos, such as when a solar eclipse occurs. NASA also plans to work with Slooh on these live events, beginning with looking at Comet 209P/LINEAR and its meteor shower when it goes past our planet Friday (May 23).

“This partnership is a great validation of our approch to engage the public in the exploration of space,” stated Michael Paolucci, the founder and CEO of Slooh.

“NASA understands the importance of citizen science, and knows that a good way to get amateur astronomers involved is to offer them ways to do productive astronomy. Slooh does that by giving them remote access to great telescopes situated at leading observatory sites around the world.”

Sources: NASA and Slooh

May 20, 2014December 23, 2015 by Bob King

How to See 209P/LINEAR, the Comet Brewing Up Saturday’s Surprise Meteor Shower

Comet 209P/LINEAR may still be faint but it's a beautiful object in this time exposure by Austrian astrophotographer Michael Jaeger. The stars appear as trails because the photographer followed the comet during the exposure.

As we anxiously await the arrival of a potentially rich new meteor shower this weekend, its parent comet, 209P/LINEAR, draws ever closer and brighter. Today it shines feebly at around magnitude +13.7 yet possesses a classic form with bright head and tail. It’s rapidly approaching Earth, picking up speed every night and hopefully will be bright enough to see in your telescope very soon.

As it approaches Earth in the coming nights, comet 209P/LINEAR will appear to move quickly across the sky, traveling from Leo Minor to southern Hydra in little over a week. All maps created with Chris Marriott's SkyMap software — As it approaches Earth in the coming nights, comet 209P/LINEAR will move quickly across the sky, traveling from Ursa Major to southern Hydra in just 10 days. When closest on May 28-29, the comet will cover 10 degrees per day or just shy of 1/2 degree per hour. All maps created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap software

The comet was discovered in Feb. 2004 by the Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) automated sky survey. Given its stellar appearance at the time of discovery it was first thought to be an asteroid, but photos taken the following month photos by Rob McNaught (Siding Spring Observatory, Australia) revealed a narrow tail. Unlike long period comets Hale-Bopp and the late Comet ISON that swing around the sun once every few thousand years or few million years, this one’s a frequent visitor, dropping by every 5.09 years.

This detailed map shows the comet's path from Leo Minor across the backside of the Sickle of Leo May 23-26. Hopefully it will be bright enough then to spot in an 8-inch or larger telescope. Click to enlarge and then print out for use at the telescope. — This detailed map shows the comet’s path from Leo Minor across the backside of the Sickle of Leo May 23-26. Hopefully it will be bright enough then to spot in an 8-inch or larger telescope. On May 25, it passes close to the colorful double star Gamma Leonis and a pair of NGC galaxies. Stars plotted to magnitude +9. Click to enlarge and then print out for use at the telescope.

209P/LINEAR belongs to the Jupiter family of comets, a group of comets with periods of less than 20 years whose orbits are controlled by Jupiter. When closest at perihelion, 209P/LINEAR coasts some 90 million miles from the sun; the far end of its orbit crosses that of Jupiter. Comets that ply the gravitational domain of the solar system’s largest planet occasionally get their orbits realigned. In 2012, during a relatively close pass of that planet, Jupiter perturbed 209P’s orbit, bringing the comet and its debris trails to within 280,000 miles (450,000 km) of Earth’s orbit, close enough to spark the meteor shower predicted for this Friday night/Saturday morning May 23-24.

Track of the comet through from May 27-29 through the dim constellation Sextans south of Leo. — Track of the comet from May 27-29 through Sextans to the Hydra-Crater border with positions shown every 3 hours. Times are CDT. Click to enlarge.

This time around the sun, the comet itself will fly just 5.15 million miles (21 times the distance to the moon) from Earth around 3 a.m. CDT (8 hours UT) May 29 a little more than 3 weeks after perihelion, making it the 9th closest comet encounter ever observed. Given , you’d think 209P would become a bright object, perhaps even visible with the naked eye, but predictions call for it to reach about magnitude +11 at best. That means you’ll need an 8-inch telescope and dark sky to see it well. Either the comet’s very small or producing dust at a declining rate or both. Research published by Quanzhi Ye and Paul A. Wiegert describes the comet’s current dust production as low, a sign that 209P could be transitioning to a dormant comet or asteroid.

Light curve for comet 209P/LINEAR predicts a maximum magnitude of around 11. Click for more information. Credit: Seiichi Yoshida — Light curve for comet 209P/LINEAR forecasts a maximum magnitude of around 11. Dates are shown along the bottom and magnitude scale along the side. Click for additional information. Credit: Seiichi Yoshida

Fortunately, the moon’s out of the way this week and next when 209P/LINEAR is closest and brightest. Since we enjoy comets in part because of their unpredictability, maybe a few surprises will be in the offing including a brighter than expected appearance. The maps will help you track down 209P during the best part of its apparition. I deliberately chose ‘black stars on a white background’ for clarity in use at the telescope. It also saves on printer ink!

A brand new meteor shower shooting 100 and potentially as many as 400 meteors an hour may radiate from the dim constellation Camelopardalis below the North Star Saturday morning May 24. Each is crumb or pebble of debris lost by 209P/LINEAR during earlier cycles around the sun. This map shows the sky facing north around 2 a.m. from the Saturday May 24 from the central U.S. Stellarium

We’re grateful for the dust 209P/LINEAR carelessly lost during its many passes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Earth is expected to pass through multiple filaments of debris overnight Friday May 23-24 with the peak of at least 100 meteors per hour – about as good as a typical Perseid or Geminid shower – occurring around 2 a.m. CDT (7 hours UT).

If it’s cloudy or you’re not in the sweet zone for viewing either the comet or the potential shower, astrophysicist Gianluca Masi will offer a live feed of the comet at the Virtual Telescope Project website scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. CDT (8 p.m. Greenwich Time) May 22. A second meteor shower live feed will start at 12:30 a.m. CDT (5:30 a.m. Greenwich Time) Friday night/Saturday morning May 23-24.

SLOOH will also cover 209P/LINEAR live on the Web with telescopes on the Canary Islands starting at 5 p.m. CDT (6 p.m. EDT, 4 p.m. MDT and 3 p.m. PDT) May 23. Live meteor shower coverage featuring astronomer Bob Berman of Astronomy Magazine begins at 10 p.m. CDT. Viewers can ask questions by using hashtag #slooh.

A very exciting weekend lies ahead!

May 8, 2014December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Asteroid 2013 UQ4 Suddenly Becomes a Dark Comet with a Bright Future

Comet C/2013 UQ4, once thought to be an asteroid, now shows characteristics of a comet including a coma. This photo was made on May 7, 2014. Credit: Artyom Novichonok and Taras Prystavski

On October 23, 2013, astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey picked up a very faint asteroid with an unusual orbit more like a that of a comet than an asteroid. At the time 2013 UQ4 was little more than a stellar point with no evidence of a hazy coma or tail that would tag it as a comet. But when it recently reappeared in the morning sky after a late January conjunction with the sun, amateur astronomers got a surprise.

On May 7, Comet ISON co-discoverer Artyom Novichonok, and Taras Prystavski used a remote telescope located in Siding Spring, Australia to take photos of 2013 UQ4 shortly before dawn in the constellation Cetus. Surprise, surprise. The asteroid had grown a little fuzz, making the move to comethood. No longer a starlike object, 2013 UQ4 now displays a substantial coma or atmosphere about 1.5 arc minutes across with a more compact inner coma measuring 25 arc seconds in diameter. No tail is visible yet, and while its overall magnitude of +13.5 won’t make you break out the bottle of champagne, it’s still bright enough to see in a 12-inch telescope under dark skies.

Wide field map showing the comet's movement from Cetus through Pisces and into Cepheus in July when it becomes circumpolar for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes. It should reach peak brightness of 7th magnitude in early July. Created with Chris Marriott's SkyMap program — Wide field map showing the comet’s movement from Cetus through Pisces and into Cepheus in July when it becomes circumpolar for skywatchers at mid-northern latitudes. It should reach a peak brightness of 7th magnitude in early July. Click to enlarge. Created with Chris Marriott’s SkyMap program

The best is yet to come. Assuming the now renamed C/2013 UQ4 continues to spout dust and water vapor, it should brighten to magnitude +11 by month’s end as it moves northward across Pisces and into a dark morning sky. Perihelion occurs on June 5 with the comet reaching magnitude +8-9 by month’s end. Peak brightness of 7th magnitude is expected during its close approach of Earth on July 10 at 29 million miles (46.7 million km).

This should be a great summer comet, plainly visible in binoculars from a dark sky as it speeds across Cepheus and Draco during convenient viewing hours at the rate of some 7 degrees per night! That’s 1/3 of a degree per hour or fast enough to see movement through a telescope in a matter of minutes when the comet is nearest Earth.

Lightcurve showing the date on the bottom and magnitude along the vertical. Work by Artyom Novichonok and Taras Prystavski — Light curve showing C/2013 UQ4 brightening to a sharp peak in early July and then quickly fading. Created by Artyom Novichonok and Taras Prystavski

Come August, C/2013 UQ4 rapidly fades to magnitude +10 and then goes the way of so many comets – a return to a more sedentary lifestyle in the cold bones of deep space.

C/2013 UQ4 belongs to a special category of asteroids called damocloids (named for asteroid 5335 Damocles) that have orbits resembling the Halley-family comets with long periods, fairly steep inclinations and highly eccentric orbits (elongated shapes). Some, like Comet Halley itself, even travel backwards as they orbit the sun, an orbit astronomers describe as ‘retrograde’.

Evolution of a comet as it orbits the sun. Credit: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Sciences/ NASA

Damocloids are thought to be comets that have lost all their fizz. With their volatile ices spent from previous trips around the sun, they stop growing comas and tails and appear identical to asteroids. Occasionally, one comes back to life. It’s happened in at least four other cases and appears to be happening with C/2013 UQ4 as well.

Studies of the comet/asteroid’s light indicate that UQ4 is a very dark but rather large object some 4-9 miles (7-15 km) across. It’s estimated that C/2013 UQ4 takes at least 500 years to make one spin around the sun. Count yourself lucky this damocloid decided to spend its summer vacation in Earth’s skies. We’ll have more detailed maps and updates as the comet becomes more easily visible next month. Stay tuned.

April 24, 2014December 23, 2015 by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Captures First Ever Asteroid Images from Mars Surface

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has caught the first image of asteroids taken from the surface of Mars. The image includes two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta. This version includes Mars' moon Deimos in a circular, exposure-adjusted inset and square insets at left from other observations the same night. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has caught the first image of asteroids taken from the surface of Mars on April 20, 2014. The image includes two asteroids, Ceres and Vesta. This version includes Mars’ moon Deimos in a circular, exposure-adjusted inset and square insets at left from other observations the same night. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M
More night sky views and surface mosaics below[/caption]

The Curiosity rover has captured the first images of asteroids even taken by a Human probe from the alien surface of the Red Planet during night sky imaging.

And it’s not just one asteroid, but two asteroids caught in the same night time pointing on the Red Planet. Namely, asteroids Ceres and Vesta.

The stupendous image – seen above – was snapped by Curiosity’s high resolution Mastcam camera earlier this week on Sunday, April 20, 2014, Sol 606, whilst she was scanning about during daylight for her next drilling target at “The Kimberley” waypoint she pulled into at the start of this month.

Ceres and Vesta appear as streaks since the Mastcam image was taken as a 12 second time exposure.

“This imaging was part of an experiment checking the opacity of the atmosphere at night in Curiosity’s location on Mars, where water-ice clouds and hazes develop during this season,” said camera team member Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, in a statement.

“The two Martian moons were the main targets that night, but we chose a time when one of the moons was near Ceres and Vesta in the sky.”

View our “Kimberley” region photo mosiacs below to see exactly from where the six wheeled robot took the asteroid image shown above, while driving around the base of “Mount Remarkable”.

And those two asteroids are extra special because not only are they the two most massive objects in the Main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but they are also the destinations of another superlative NASA unmanned mission – Dawn.

Curiosity Mars rover captured this panoramic view of a butte called "Mount Remarkable" and surrounding outcrops at “The Kimberley " waypoint on April 11, 2014, Sol 597. Colorized navcam photomosaic was stitched by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer - kenkremer.com — Curiosity Mars rover captured this panoramic view of a butte called “Mount Remarkable” and surrounding outcrops at “The Kimberley ” waypoint on April 11, 2014, Sol 597. Colorized navcam photomosaic was stitched by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com

The exotic Dawn probe, propelled by a stream of ions, orbited Vesta for a year in 2011 and is now approaching Ceres for an exciting orbital mission in 2015.

Ceres, the largest asteroid, is about 590 miles (950 kilometers) in diameter. Vesta is the third-largest object in the main belt and measures about 350 miles (563 kilometers) wide.

And as if Curiosity’s mouthwatering and heavenly double asteroid gaze wasn’t already spectacular enough, the tinier of Mars’ moons, Deimos, was also caught in that same image.

A trio of star trails is also seen, again due to the 12 second time exposure time.

Furthermore, Mars largest moon Phobos as well as massive planets Jupiter and Saturn were also visible that same Martian evening, albeit in a different pointing.

These celestial objects are all combined in the composite image above.

“The background is detector noise, limiting what we can see to magnitude 6 or 7, much like normal human eyesight. The two asteroids and three stars would be visible to someone of normal eyesight standing on Mars. Specks are effects of cosmic rays striking the camera’s light detector,” says NASA.

An unannotated image is seen below.

Curiosity’s makers back on Earth are nowhere to be seen. But check out the Curiosity’s earlier photo below of the Earth and Moon from my prior article – here.

To date, Curiosity’s odometer totals 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. She has taken over 143,000 images.

The sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, is the 1 ton robots ultimate destination inside Gale Crater because it holds caches of water altered minerals. Such minerals could possibly indicate locations that sustained potential Martian life forms, past or present, if they ever existed.

Martian landscape with rows of curved rock outcrops at ‘Kimberly’ in the foreground and spectacular Mount Sharp on the horizon. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover pulled into Kimberly waypoint dominated by layered rock outcrops as likely drilling site. This colorized navcam camera photomosaic was assembled from imagery taken on Sol 576 (Mar. 20, 2014). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com

Curiosity has some 4 kilometers to go to reach the base of Mount Sharp sometime later this year.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Curiosity, Opportunity, Chang’e-3, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, LADEE, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

You are here! – As an Evening Star in the Martian Sky. This evening-sky view taken by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shows the Earth and Earth’s moon as seen on Jan. 31, 2014, or Sol 529 shortly after sunset at the Dingo Gap inside Gale Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/TAMU — You are here! – As an Evening Star in the Martian Sky
This evening-sky view taken by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shows the Earth and Earth’s moon as seen on Jan. 31, 2014, or Sol 529 shortly after sunset at the Dingo Gap inside Gale Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/TAMU

Mars rock rows and Mount Sharp. Martian landscape scene with rows of striated rocks in the foreground and Mount Sharp on the horizon. NASA's Curiosity Mars rover paused mid drive at the Junda outcrop to snap the component images for this navcam camera photomosaic on Sol 548 (Feb. 19, 2014) and then continued traveling southwards towards mountain base. UHF Antenna at right. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com — Mars rock rows and Mount Sharp. Martian landscape scene with rows of striated rocks in the foreground and Mount Sharp on the horizon. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover paused mid drive at the Junda outcrop to snap the component images for this navcam camera photomosaic on Sol 548 (Feb. 19, 2014) and then continued traveling southwards towards mountain base. UHF Antenna at right. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com

April 24, 2014December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Asteroids VS. Your Hometown: Fun but Frightening Graphics Compare Asteroid Sizes to Places on Earth

This graphic imagines asteroid 243 Ida as it would fantastically hover over the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa.

So, how big is that space rock?

Sometimes when I see data on sizes and distances in relation to stuff out in space, it’s hard to get a frame of reference, since those two categories tend to lean towards the super-big. But now, I’ve got a little help. Space enthusiast and software engineer Ciro Villa has brought some of these references closer to home with these fun graphics that provide accurate size ratios and proportions of objects in space compared to places on Earth.

Villa calls these graphics “hovering celestial objects” and while all of these scenarios are impossible in real life, he’s placed large asteroids and moons next to Earthly locations to provide a good frame of reference for dimensions. Please note that most of these objects have absolutely no chance of colliding with Earth as they are not anywhere near our neighborhood and are not expected to visit it either.

“My representations are is purely for illustrative purposes,” Villa said. “I have maintained the size ratios and proportions as accurately as possible just to demonstrate the dimensions. This is mostly a ‘fun’ exercise.”

For example, I regularly drive through the St. Louis, Missouri metro area, so I have a sense of how big it is. Above, Villa places Asteroid 243 Ida — which has an average diameter of 31.4 km (19.5 miles) — to hover right above St. Louis. 31 km is about the distance from East St. Louis, Illinois to Creve Coeur, Missouri, which are the generally accepted eastern and western borders of the St. Louis metro area. I could probably drive across Ida in about 30 minutes — if it’s not rush hour, that is!

To create these graphics, Villa uses Google Maps, NASA data and Gimp image editing software. Again, these graphics are for fun, but I really find them useful!

And Villa provided a caveat: “Please note that I am not a professional graphic artist, so I’m sure people are going to find plenty of imperfections in these depictions,” he said. “The important point I am trying to convey is mainly the size dimensions comparing with a known area of Earth.”

Here are more:

Asteroids Orcus and Vanth hovering over Eastern Texas and Western Arkansas. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa.

Here are a bigger pair of objects in comparison to an area of Eastern Texas and Western Arkansas. 90482 Orcus is a trans-Neptunian Kuiper belt object that is about 800 kilometers in diameter. Orcus has a fairly large moon orbiting it named Vanth, which is about 300 km in diameter.

Asteroid 433 Eros over Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa.

This asteroid might pay Earth a close visit, but not for a couple of million years. Eros is the second largest NEO (Near Earth Object), with a diameter of approximately 34 kilometers, and here Villa imagines Eros centered over the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) at Cape Canaveral, covering the Cape area from approximately the southern end of the Canaveral National Seashore to the Pine Island Conservation area, with the VAB in about the middle, as the crow (or sandhill crane) flies.

While Eros is technically an NEO, it made one of its closest passes of Earth in 2012 of 16.6 million miles (26.7 million km) and won’t pass that close again until 2056. A look ahead with orbital mechanics suggests that Eros may move to an Earth-crossing orbit in about two million years, given the right perturbations by gravitational interactions.

216 Kleopatra is an asteroid belt object shaped like a dog bone (or a deformed dumbell). Its length is approximately 217 kilometers; just about the size of New Jersey. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa.

And to show the scale of several moons in our Solar System, Villa made these comparisons:

An imaginary graphic depicting how Deimos would look if it hovered over Paris, France. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa.

“Deimos is about 15 kilometers across, so I have measured a portion of the city of Paris, France of about 5 Kilometers and properly scaled Deimos,” Villa said. “For added dramatics, I have purposely shown enough of Deimos hovering to show about 5 kilometers of Paris, to show some of the landmarks (notice the Eiffel tower). Had I decided to show all of Deimos, the scale would have been too large to recognize any of the landmarks of Paris.”

How Saturn's moon Enceladus would look if it hovered over southern England. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa. — How Saturn’s moon Enceladus would look if it hovered over southern England. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa.

Continuing these imaginary montages, here is one of our favorite moons, Enceladus, with an approximate diameter of about 500 kilometers, seen drifting over Southern England. That’s about the same distance from Plymouth to Leigh-on-the-Sea in the UK.

A graphic of imagining the moon Phoebe (Saturn IX) hovering Central Florida. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa. — A graphic imagining asteroid Phoebe (Saturn IX) hovering Central Florida. Credit and copyright: Ciro Villa.

This last one is a bit personal for Villa, since he lives in Florida. Here, Saturn’s moon Phoebe hangs over Central Florida. “Phoebe shares an approximate diameter of 200 kilometers with the central portion of the state,” Villa said, “and I wanted to ‘play’ with my imagination a bit!”

Thanks to Ciro Villa for sharing his “hovering celestial objects” with Universe Today. Check out his informative and entertaining G+ feed here.

April 22, 2014April 26, 2016 by Jason Major

Surprise: Earth Is Hit By a Lot More Asteroids Than You Thought

Sentinel will orbit the Sun, looking outwards for NEOs that could potentially impact our planet.

“The fact that none of these asteroid impacts shown in the video was detected in advance is proof that the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a ‘city-killer’ sized asteroid is blind luck.”

– Ed Lu, B612 Foundation CEO and former NASA astronaut

When we think of recent large asteroid impacts on Earth, only a handful may come to mind. In particular, one is the forest-flattening 1908 Tunguska explosion over Siberia (which may have been the result of a comet) and another is the February 2013 meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, shattering windows with its air blast. Both occurred in Russia, the largest country on Earth, and had human witnesses — in the case of the latter many witnesses thanks to today’s ubiquitous dashboard cameras.

While it’s true that those two observed events took place 105 years apart, there have been many, many more large-scale asteroid impacts around the world that people have not witnessed, if only due to their remote locations… impact events that, if they or ones like them ever occurred above a city or populated area, could result in destruction of property, injuries to people, or worse.

(And I’m only referring to the ones we’ve found out about over the past 13 years.)

A new video released by the B612 Foundation shows a visualization of data collected by a global nuclear weapons test network. It reveals 26 explosive events recorded from 2000 to 2013 that were not the result of nuclear detonations — these were impacts by asteroids, ranging from one to 600 kilotons in energy output.

Update: a list of the 26 aforementioned impacts and their energy outputs is below:

8/25/2000 (1-9 kilotons) North Pacific Ocean
4/23/2001 (1-9 kilotons) North Pacific Ocean
3/9/2002 (1-9 kilotons) North Pacific Ocean
6/6/2002 (20+ kilotons) Mediterranean Sea
11/10/2002 (1-9 kilotons) North Pacific Ocean
9/3/2004 (20+ kilotons) Southern Ocean
10/7/2004 (10-20 kilotons) Indian Ocean
10/26/2005 (1-9 kilotons) South Pacific Ocean
11/9/2005 (1-9 kilotons) New South Wales, Australia
2/6/2006 (1-9 kilotons) South Atlantic Ocean
5/21/2006 (1-9 kilotons) South Atlantic Ocean
8/9/2006 (1-9 kilotons) Indian Ocean
9/2/2006 (1-9 kilotons) Indian Ocean
10/2/2006 (1-9 kilotons) Arabian Sea
12/9/2006 (10-20 kilotons) Egypt
9/22/2007 (1-9 kilotons) Indian Ocean
12/26/2007 (1-9 kilotons) South Pacific Ocean
10/7/2008 (1-9 kilotons) Sudan
10/8/2009 (20+ kilotons) South Sulawesi, Indonesia
9/3/2010 (10-20 kilotons) South Pacific Ocean
12/25/2010 (1-9 kilotons) Tasman Sea
4/22/2012 (1-9 kilotons) California, USA
2/15/2013, (20+ kilotons) Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia
4/21/2013 (1-9 kilotons) Santiago del Estero, Argentina
4/30/2013 (10-20 kilotons) North Atlantic Ocean
(Source: B612 Foundation)

To include the traditonally macabre comparison, the bomb used to destroy Hiroshima at the end of World War II was about 15 kilotons; the Nagasaki bomb was 20.

This evening former NASA astronauts Ed Lu, Tom Jones, and Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders will present this video to the public at a live Q&A event at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.

CEO and co-founder of the B612 Foundation, Ed Lu is working to increase awareness of asteroids and near-Earth objects with the ultimate goal of building and launching Sentinel, an infrared observatory that will search for and identify as-yet unknown objects with orbits that intersect Earth’s. The event, titled “Saving the Earth by Keeping Big Asteroids Away,” will be held at 6 p.m. PDT. It is free to the public and the visualization above is now available online on the B612 Foundation website. A press event will also be taking place at 11:30 a.m. PDT, and will be streamed live here.

Currently there is no comprehensive dynamic map of our inner solar system showing the positions and trajectories of these asteroids that might threaten Earth. The citizens of Earth are essentially flying around the Solar System with eyes closed. Asteroids have struck Earth before, and they will again – unless we do something about it.

– B612 Foundation

Want to support the Sentinel mission? Donate online here.

Added 4/24: The April 22 press conference at the Museum of Flight can be watched in its entirety below:

Technical note: While B612 and Ed Lu are presenting a new visualization on April 22, the data behind it are not entirely new. Previous surveys on NEA populations have determined within reasonable parameters the number of objects and likelihood of future impacts of varying sizes using data from WISE and ground-based observatories… see a series of slides by Alan Harris of JPL/Caltech here. (ht Amy Mainzer)

Also, if you have questions on the asteroid visualization, there are some FAQs on the B612 site here.

April 17, 2014December 23, 2015 by Bob King

Ceres and Vesta Converge in Virgo, Watch it Happen With Just Binoculars

This map shows the paths of Ceres and Vesta in Virgo through late June at five-day intervals. Vesta is currently magnitude +5.8 and Ceres 7.0. Both are easily visible in binoculars from suburban and rural skies. A wide view map below will help you navigate from nearby bright Mars to Zeta Virginis. From Zeta, star hop to either asteroid. Stars are shown to about magnitude +8.5. Click to enlarge. Created with Chris Marriott's SkyMap software

Don’t let them pass you by. Right now and continuing through July, the biggest and brightest asteroids will be running on nearly parallel tracks in the constellation Virgo and so close together they’ll easily fit in the same binocular field of view. The twofer features Ceres (biggest) and Vesta (brightest) which are also the prime targets of NASA’s Dawn Mission. Now en route to a Ceres rendezvous next February, Dawn orbited Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012 and sent back spectacular photos of two vast impact basins, craters stained black by carbon-rich asteroids and parallel troughs that stretch around the 330-mile-wide world like rubber bands.

mosaic synthesizes some of the best views the spacecraft had of the giant asteroid Vesta. Dawn studied Vesta. The towering mountain at the south pole - more than twice the height of Mount Everest - is visible at the bottom of the image. The set of three craters known as the "snowman" can be seen at the top left. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCAL/MPS/DLR/IDA — This mosaic of Vesta synthesizes some of the best views the spacecraft had of the giant asteroid. The towering mountain at the south pole – more than twice the height of Mount Everest – is visible at the bottom of the image. The set of three craters known as the “snowman” can be seen at the top left. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCAL/MPS/DLR/IDA

Astronomers used Dawn’s gravity data to discover Vesta is more like a planet than anyone had supposed. Deep beneath its crust, composed of lighter minerals, lies a denser iron core. Most asteroids were too small to generate enough interior heat through the decay of radioactive elements to melt and “differentiate” into core, mantle and crust like the terrestrial planets. Thanks to our new understanding, you’ll hear Vesta referred to as a ‘baby planet’.

A full 5.3 hour rotation of Vesta using photos taken by Dawn. Credit: NASA

Studies of its crustal rocks showed a match to a clan of basaltic meteorites called howardites, eucrites and diogenites. Many of these formerly volcanic rocks that trace their origin to Vesta are found in numerous private and institutional collections. With a little homework, you can even buy a slice of Vesta on eBay, making for one of the least expensive sample return missions ever undertaken.

Dawn’s Greatest Hits at Vesta – A quick summary of key discoveries accompanied by electric guitar

While Vesta is a rocky body, Ceres shows telltale signs of water and iron-rich clay. Like Vesta, it also appears to have cooked itself into denser core and lighter crust. Because Ceres is less dense than Earth, astronomers believe water ice may be buried beneath its dusty crust.

Dwarf planet Ceres is located in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Observations by ESA's Herschel space observatory between 2011 and 2013 find that the dwarf planet has a thin water-vapour atmosphere. It is the first unambiguous detection of water vapour around an object in the asteroid belt. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab — Dwarf planet Ceres (right) is located in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Observations by ESA’s Herschel space observatory between 2011 and 2013 found that the dwarf planet has a thin water-vapor atmosphere. It’s the first unambiguous detection of water vapor around an object in the asteroid belt. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Earlier this year, astronomers working with the Herschel Space Telescope announced the discovery of plumes of water vapor blasting from two regions on the dwarf planet’s surface. While Ceres is an asteroid it’s also a member of a select group of dwarf planets, bodies large enough to have crunched themselves into spheres through their own gravity but not big enough to clear the region they orbit of smaller asteroids.

Vesta (left) and Ceres. Vesta was photographed up close by Dawn, while the best views we have to date of Ceres come from the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/ESA — Vesta (left) and Ceres. Vesta was photographed up close by Dawn, while the best views we have to date of Ceres come from the Hubble Space Telescope. Notice the bright white spot which is still a mystery. Credit: NASA/ESA

Ceres and Vesta will be gradually drawing closer in the coming weeks and months until on July 5 only 10 arc minutes (one-third the diameter of a full moon) will separate them. They’ll also be fading, but not so much that binoculars won’t show them throughout this excellent dual apparition. Vesta will only dim to magnitude +7 by July 1, Ceres to 8.4. Come mid-June I’ll return with a detailed map showing how best to see the dynamic duo during their close conjunction.

To find your way to the 4th magnitude stars Zeta and Tau Virginis, which you can use with the detailed map to guide you to Ceres and Vesta, start with brilliant Mars in the southern sky and look about one fist to the left or east to spot Zeta. Stellarium — To find your way to the 4th magnitude stars Zeta and Tau Virginis, which you can use with the detailed map to guide you to Ceres and Vesta, start with brilliant Mars in the southern sky and look about one fist to the left or east to spot Zeta. Map shows the sky around 10 o’clock local time in late April. Stellarium

Sure, both Ceres and Vesta look exactly like stars even in large amateur telescopes, but sampling photons from real asteroids while listening to the sound of frogs on a spring night is my idea of a good time. Maybe yours too. Good luck!

April 16, 2014April 26, 2016 by Jason Major

Astronauts to Reveal Sobering Data on Asteroid Impacts

Chelyabinsk fireball recorded by a dashcam from Kamensk-Uralsky north of Chelyabinsk where it was still dawn. A study of the area near this meteor air burst revealed similar signatures to the Tall el_Hammam site.

This Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, three former NASA astronauts will present new evidence that our planet has experienced many more large-scale asteroid impacts over the past decade than previously thought… three to ten times more, in fact. A new visualization of data from a nuclear weapons warning network, to be unveiled by B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu during the evening event at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, shows that “the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a ‘city-killer’ sized asteroid is blind luck.”

Since 2001, 26 atomic-bomb-scale explosions have occurred in remote locations around the world, far from populated areas, made evident by a nuclear weapons test warning network. In a recent press release B612 Foundation CEO Ed Lu states:

“This network has detected 26 multi-kiloton explosions since 2001, all of which are due to asteroid impacts. It shows that asteroid impacts are NOT rare — but actually 3-10 times more common than we previously thought. The fact that none of these asteroid impacts shown in the video was detected in advance is proof that the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a ‘city-killer’ sized asteroid is blind luck. The goal of the B612 Sentinel mission is to find and track asteroids decades before they hit Earth, allowing us to easily deflect them.”

The Sentinel Space Telescope in orbit around the Sun. Image courtesy of Ball Aerospace.

The B612 Foundation is partnered with Ball Aerospace to build the Sentinel Infrared Space Telescope Mission. Once positioned in solar orbit closer to the Sun from Earth, Sentinel will look outwards in infrared to detect hundreds of thousands of as-yet unknown near-Earth objects over 140 meters in size. The privately-funded spacecraft is slated to launch in 2017-18 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

In addition to Lu, Space Shuttle astronaut Tom Jones and Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders will be speaking at the event, titled “Saving the Earth by Keeping Big Asteroids Away.”

The event will be held at 6 p.m. PDT at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA. It is free to the public and the visualization will be made available online on the B612 Foundation website.

Want to support the Sentinel mission? Donate online here.

April 10, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Asteroid That Dwarfed Dinosaur-Killer Punched Earth 3 Billion Years Ago, Study Says

A graphic comparing the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, with an asteroid newly believed to have struck the Earth 3.26 billion years ago. Below the asteroids is a graphic showing how big the craters would have been. Credit: American Geophysical Union

Early in Earth’s history, a killer asteroid smashed a hole in our planet about 300 miles (500 kilometers) wide, which is greater than the driving distance between Washington and New York City, a new study says. The space rock set off a cycle of destruction that sounds like your worst nightmares.

That one reported collision 3.26 billion years ago made the Earth tremble, created earthquakes and set off tsunamis that were thousands of meters deep, according to a new research team. The size of this estimated destructor? About 37 kilometers (23 miles) wide, or about three times as wide as the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

“We knew it was big, but we didn’t know how big,” stated co-author Donald Lowe, a geologist at Stanford University and a co-author of the study, of the asteroid.

Evidence of the huge impact — the first one mapped from so long ago — comes from an examination of the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa, which shows rocks and “crustal fractures” that are consistent with the idea of a giant impact, the scientists said. (The asteroid struck the Earth thousands of miles away, but where isn’t known.)

An satellite view of Barberton greenstone around the town of Barberton, South Africa. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Landsat/U.S. Geological Survey/Jesse Allen

If confirmed, the asteroid could have been one of many that smacked Earth during what is known as the Late Heavy Bombardment period, which pummeled the solar system with debris between 3 billion and 4 billion years ago.

This one event could even have changed the way the Earth formed, the scientists added. For example, it could have been broken up our planet’s crust and tectonics, creating the plate tectonics we are familiar with today.

You can read more about the research in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. It was led by Norman Sleep, a geophysicist at Stanford University.

Source: American Geophysical Union