Example of an orbital 'selfie' that Planetary Resources' ARKYD telescope could provide to anyone who donates to their new Kickstarter campaign. Credit: Planetary Resources.
A crowdfunded telescope — best known for offering “space selfies” for backers as an incentive to send money — is now considering a search for alien planets.
Planetary Resources Inc. (the proposed asteroid miners) announced a new “stretch goal” for its asteroid-hunting Arkyd-100 telescope.
If the company can raise $2 million — double its original goal — it promises to equip the Arkyd telescope to look at star systems for exoplanets. The project is still short the $1 million required to receive any money, but the target appears to be close enough now to give Planetary Resources confidence that more funds will come for new initiatives.
Artist’s conception of the Kepler Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Because Kepler needs at least three reaction wheels to point towards targets, its future is uncertain. Some planet searching is still possible with ground-based observatories, however.
“With NASA’s recent equipment failure on the Kepler telescope (RIP, Kepler!), our search for extrasolar planets nearly came to a grinding halt. If we can meet our stretch goal, we can resume some of this progress by enhancing the Arkyd,” Arkyd organizers stated on their Kickstarter campaign website.
“We’re partnering with exoplanet researchers at MIT [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] to equip citizen scientists like YOU with the tools to join a search that’s captivated us for generations.”
Arkyd would use two methods to hunt down planets:
– Transiting, or seeing the dip in a star’s brightness when a planet passes in front of it;
– Gravitational microlensing, or finding planets by measuring how the gravity of the star (and its planets) distorts light from stars and galaxies behind.
With 19 days to go, Arkyd is at about $857,000 of its preliminary $1 million goal that it must reach to receive any money.
If it can raise $1.3 million, Planetary Resources proposes to build a ground station at an undisclosed “educational partner” that would double the download speed of data from the orbiting observatory.
The project has more than 9,500 backers. Two more stretch goals will be revealed if Arkyd receives 11,000 backers and 15,000 backers, Planetary Resources stated.
Orbit diagram of Asteroid 2013 LR6. Credit: JPL Small Body Database.
A truck-sized asteroid just discovered yesterday (Thursday, June 6) will give Earth a relatively close shave later today/early tomorrow, depending on your time zone. Asteroid 2013 LR6 is somewhere between 5- 16 meters (16 to 54 feet) in diameter and will be flying by at only about 111,000 kilometers (69,000 mi, 0.29x Lunar Distances) from Earth at 4:43UTC/12:43AM EDT on June 8, 2013.
This is similar in size to the space rock that exploded over Russia back in February of this year. The Russian asteroid was about 15 meters (50 feet) in diameter before it exploded in an airburst event about 20-25 km (12-15 miles) above Earth’s surface.
Find out how you can watch the flyby live online, below.
This flyby is not at close as February’s 2012 DA14 flyby, but it indeed is quite close by Solar System standards. It will be speeding by 9.8 km a second (6.14 mi/s). The asteroid was first spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey and now several other observatories have made follow-up observations to verify and help determine its size and orbit.
According to the Minor Planet Center’s Twitter feed, 2013 LR6 is the 167th minor planetary object discovered so far in the month of June 2013! That is incredible, and as astronomer Nick Howes said via Twitter, “That number should give people a good heads up as to why searching is important.”
According to our David Dickinson, 2013 LR6 will be plunging thru the constellation Vela at closest approach tonight, but it will be a faint one, as it won’t break +13 magnitude.
Since this discovery is so new, Gianluca Masi and the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy has put together a last-minute opportunity to watch the flyby live, online via their telescopes.
The dust tail on Asteroid P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) has grown to over 1 million kilometers long. Image taken with the new One Degree Imager (ODI), a wide field optical camera at the WIYN telescope on Kitt Peak.
A strange comet-like object discovered in 2010 ended up being an asteroid that had been the victim of a head-on collision from another space rock. The object created a bit of buzz because of its mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and long, trailing streamers of dust. Named P/2010 A2 (LINEAR), the object is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and has been the focus of much study, including images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and many ground-based observatories. But over time, the asteroid’s long dust tail has grown to be so long that the entire object can’t fit into the field of view of most observatories.
“Here, we are watching the death of an asteroid,” said Jayadev Rajagopal, a scientist at the WIYN (Wisconsin Indiana at Yale NOAO) Telescope, speaking today at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. “We know of dozens of asteroids this has happened to in the past, but this is the only one showing us the event as it is happening.”
A graphic showing the orbit of Asteroid P/2010 A2. Credit: WIYN telescope.
Using the new wide-field camera at the WIYN 3.5 meter telescope, Rajagopal and his team have found that the peculiar asteroid P/2010 A2’s tail is much longer than was previously supposed. The tail is about a million kilometers long, roughly three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. The new One Degree Imager (ODI) can currently image an area of the sky about the size of the full moon: a future upgrade will increase the size of the field to about four times as large.
“Three and a half years after the initial disruption, and almost a full orbit around the Sun, the tail is still visible and growing,” said Rajagopal. “One of the reasons it is so long is that radiation pressure and gravity are stretching out the tail. It will progressively grow and sweep out into the ecliptic.”
He added that imaging the full extent of the tail will help pin down the total mass in the dust tail, as well as helping to determine the size of dust particles.
Hubble Views of Comet-like Asteroid P/2010 A2. Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)
Asteroid collisions are thought to be a commonplace occurrence, and are responsible for kicking up dust in our Solar System and probably other planetary systems, too. Just how much dust is produced, and how frequent the collisions happen is still a hazy topic. But the observations of P/2010 A2 are helping astronomers to better model this phenomenon. By figuring out how much dust is produced by the process of ‘collisional grinding,’ astronomers can better model the dusty debris disks of other planetary systems, as well as our own.
“This object is giving us insight into the interplay between asteroids and debris disks,” Rajagopal said. “How much dust do objects like this contribute to our zodiacal dust disk to keep it replenished? This dust must be constantly replenished because it is constantly being destroyed by radiation. The very unusual tail of this active asteroid will help us pin down the mass of the tail, and in a broader context, help us understand how asteroids brought organics and other materials into the inner planets.”
Rajagopal also said this the tail of Asteroid P/2010 A2 is a meteor stream in the making. “It will eventually sweep into the Earth’s orbit and give us a meteorite stream, sending some meteorites our way, maybe a million years from now.”
Since Asteroid 1998 QE2 has a name which evokes cruise ships, astrophysicist Rhys Taylor has created this wonderful video comparing the two QE2s. He also has more information on his great blog, Physicists of the Caribbean.
An artist's conception of an asteroid collision, in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
In perhaps the neatest astronomical application of geneology yet, astronomers found 28 “hidden” families of asteroids that could eventually show them how some rocks get into orbits that skirt the Earth’s path in space.
From scanning millions of snapshots of asteroid heat signatures in the infrared, these groups popped out in an all-sky survey of asteroids undertaken by NASA’s orbiting Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer. This survey took place in the belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, where most near-Earth objects (NEOs) come from.
NEOs, to back up for a second, are asteroids and comets that approach Earth’s orbit from within 28 million miles (45 million kilometers). Sometimes, a gravitational push can send a previously unthreatening rock closer to the planet’s direction. The dinosaurs’ extinction roughly 65 million years ago, for example, is widely attributed to a massive rock collision on Earth.
Artist concept of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Credit: NASA
There are about 600,000 known asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, and the survey looked at about 120,000 of them. Astronomers then attempted to group some of them into “families”, which are best determined by the mineral composition of an asteroid and how much light it reflects.
While it’s hard to measure reflectivity in visible light — a big, dark asteroid reflects a similar amount of light as a small shiny one — infrared observations are harder to fool. Bigger objects give off more heat.
This allowed astronomers to reclassify some previously studied asteroids (which were previously grouped by their orbits), and come up with 28 new families.
“This will help us trace the NEOs back to their sources and understand how some of them have migrated to orbits hazardous to the Earth,” stated Lindley Johnson, NASA’s program executive for the Near-Earth Object Observation Program.
This diagram illustrates the differences between orbits of a typical near-Earth asteroid (blue) and a potentially hazardous asteroid, or PHA (orange). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The astronomers next hope to study these different families to figure out their parent bodies. Astronomers believe that many asteroids we see today broke off from something much larger, most likely through a collision at some point in the past.
While Earthlings will be most interested in how NEOs came from these larger bodies and threaten the planet today, astronomers are also interested in learning how the asteroid belt formed and why the rocks did not coalesce into a planet.
The prevailing theory today says that was due to influences from giant Jupiter’s strong gravity, which to this day pulls many incoming comets and asteroids into different orbits if they swing too close. (Just look at what happened to Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994, for example.)
Asteroid 1998 QE2, taken on May 31, 2013 when it was 5.8 million km (3.6 million miles) from Earth and moving at around 21 arc mins per hour. The asteroid was quite bright at around magnitude 11. Credit and copyright: Damian Peach.
Will the flyby of Near Earth Asteroid 285263 (1998 QE2) reveal more surprises? NASA announced yesterday that radar images uncovered a previously unknown small moon orbiting the big asteroid. Now, observatories and amateurs around the world are taking a look at this big, dark space rock, which is about 2.7 kilometers (1.7 miles) in diameter. Here are some of the “early returns” just in!
This asteroid will pass 5.86 million km (3.64 million miles) from the Earth on Friday, May 31st at 20:59 Universal Time (UT) or 4:59PM EDT. That is about 15 times the distance between Earth and the Moon, so no worries. But it is not often an asteroid this big comes by within viewing range of observatories on Earth.
Asteroid (285263) 1998 QE2, on May 31, 2013, taken remotely from the H06 iTelescope Observatory in New Mexico. Credit and copyright: Ernesto Guido and Nick Howes, Remanzacco Observatory.
The Remanzacco Observatory team of Ernesto Guido and Nick Howes provided this image, above, and a great animation of the asteroid, as well:
Animation of (285263) 1998 QE2 on May 31, 2013 by E. Guido & N. Howes
Asteroid 1998 QE2 on May 28, 2013. Credit and copyright: Gianluca Masi, Ceccano, Italy; Virtual Telescope Project.
Masi also provided a video from his May 30 observations:
Animation of Asteroid 1998 QE2, May 31, 2013 taken remotely with iTelescope T9. Credit and copyright: Ian Musgrave.
Here’s one from Ian Musgrave. If the animation isn’t working in your browser, click on the image to animate. Ian also has provided this graphic made from Celestia software to show Asteroid 1998 QE2’s orbit:
Orbit of 1998 QE2 simulated in Celestia at closest approach on May 31 20:59 UT. Via Ian Musgrave.
Want to try and see this asteroid for yourself? Our very own David Dickinson has written a great “how-to” for this object, but you are going to need a fairly large backyard telescope, since it will be about 100 times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye, even at closest approach.
The Slooh online telescope will have views of online tomorrow, which you can watch at their website. The webcast will start at 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT) on Friday, May 31.
Also, starting at 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT), astrophysicist Gianluca Masi will have a webcast from the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy.
Also, if you want more asteroids, on Friday May 31, the White House is hosting an asteroid-themed “We the Geeks” Google+ Hangout starting at 2 p.m. EDT.
The live video conference will feature Bill Nye the Science Guy, JL Galache from the Minor Planet Center, former astronaut Ed Lu, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, and Peter Diamandis, co-founder of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources. They will discuss identification, resource potential and threat of asteroids. Here’s the link the White House’s Google+ page.
Radar images from May 30, 2012 of Asteroid 1998 QE2, showing its binary companion. Credit: NASA.
Late yesterday, NASA turned the 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California towards Asteroid 1998 QE2 as it was heading towards its closest approach to Earth, and they got a big surprise: the asteroid is a binary system. 1998 QE2 itself is 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) in diameter, and the newly found orbiting moon is about 600 meters in diameter.
The radar images were taken were taken on May 29, 2013, when the asteroid was about 3.75 million miles (6 million kilometers) from Earth.
“Radar really helps to pin down the orbit of an asteroid as well as the size of it,” said Paul Chodas of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program office, speaking during a JPL webcast about this asteroid on May 30. “We now know our size estimates were pretty good, but finding it was a binary was surprising.”
NASA said that about 16 percent of asteroids are binary or even triple systems.
Each of the images above are snippets of about 5 minutes of radar data. You can watch a movie of the data, below:
Other surprises were several radar-dark features, which may be cavities or impact craters, said Marina Brozovic, a scientist at JPL. The asteroid is also rotating more slowly than originally thought.
Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) 285263 (1998 QE2) will pass 5.86 million km from the Earth on Friday, May 31st at 20:59 Universal Time (UT) or 4:59PM EDT. This is the closest approach of 1998 QE2 for this century, and it poses no threat – and there’s not any threat in the future – as it is passing over 15 times as distant as the Earth’s Moon. But the rather large size of this space rock makes it an object of interest for astronomers.
Chodas added that they will continue to take radar data of this asteroid while they can to improve its orbital parameters, and that the presence of the moonlet means they can get an even more precise mass estimate of the asteroid.
Want to try and see this asteroid for yourself? Our very own David Dickinson has written a great “how-to” for this object, but you are going to need a fairly large backyard telescope, since it will be about 100 times fainter than what can be seen with the naked eye, even at closest approach.
The Slooh online telescope will have views of online tomorrow, which you can watch at their website. The webcast will start at 20:30 UTC (4:30 p.m. EDT) on Friday, May 31.
Also, starting at 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT), astrophysicist Gianluca Masi will have a webcast from the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy.
Additionally, if you want to have a Bruce Willis-type view of this asteroid, check out NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System. They have a special feature on this asteroid, and you can “ride along with it for the next few days,” said Doug Ellison, Visualization Producer at JPL, speaking during the webcast.
This amazing tool creates realistic simulated views based on real data, and allows you to travel to any planet, moon or spacecraft across time and space, in 3D and in real time — or speed up to see the future.
Just go to the Eyes on the Solar System website, and when the window opens, click on “Tours and Features” in the upper right hand corner, then click on “1998 QE2” in the dropdown box, and away you go. If you click on the “Live” button the left, you’ll see the current location; click on “Ride Along” and find yourself sitting on the asteroid heading towards Earth.
At the bottom control panel “dock” (click on the bottom box on the lower right side if the panel isn’t showing), you can speed up time and see how far from Earth this asteroid will get and where it will go in the future.
Ellison added that right now the imagery on Eyes on the Solar System doesn’t have the moonlet orbiting 1998 QE2, but they will be adding it soon to make the visualization as realistic as possible.
NASA’s @AsteroidWatch Twitter account shared the news about the moon:
Also, if you want more asteroids, on Friday May 31, the White House is hosting an asteroid-themed “We the Geeks” Google+ Hangout starting at 2 p.m. EDT.
The live video conference will feature Bill Nye the Science Guy, former astronaut Ed Lu, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, and Peter Diamandis, co-founder of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources. They will discuss identification, resource potential and threat of asteroids. Here’s the link the White House’s Google+ page.
Example of an orbital 'selfie' that Planetary Resources' ARKYD telescope could provide to anyone who donates to their new Kickstarter campaign. Credit: Planetary Resources.
How much would you donate to have access to a space telescope … or just to have an orbital “selfie”? Planetary Resources, Inc., the company that wants to mine asteroids, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the world’s first crowdfunded space telescope. They say their Arkyd-100 telescope will provide unprecedented public access to space and place the most advanced exploration technology into the hands of students, scientists and a new generation of citizen explorers.
To make their campaign successful, they need to raise $1 million in Kickstarter pledges by the end of June 2013. Less than 2 hours into their campaign, they have raised over $100,000.
Last year, Planetary Resources revealed their plans to develop a series of small spacecraft to do a little ‘space prospecting’ which would eventually allow them to mine near Earth asteroids, extracting valuable resources.
Their announcement today of the crowdfunded Arkyd-100 space telescope will allow them to begin the search for asteroid they could mine, while involving the public and providing access to to the space telescope “for inspiration, exploration and research” or have a commemorative photo of those who donate displayed above the Earth, such as the image above.
During a webcast today to announce the Kickstarter campaign, Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer for Planetary Resources said the telescope would have 1 arcsecond resolution, with the benefit of being above atmosphere.
A wide array of scientists, space enthusiasts and even Bill Nye the Science Guy have voiced their support for Planetary Resources’ new public space telescope.
Artist concept of the Arkyd telescope in space. Credit: Planetary Resources Inc.
“The ARKYD crowdfunding campaign is extraordinary,” said Sara Seager, Ph.D., Professor of Physics and Planetary Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Not only does the telescope have the technical capability to increase our understanding of space, but it can be placed in orbit for an incredibly low cost. That is an economic breakthrough that will accelerate space-based research now and in the future.”
The space telescope is being built by Planetary Resources’ technical team, who worked on every recent U.S. Mars lander and rover.
“I’ve operated rovers and landers on Mars, and now I can share that incredible experience with everyone,” said Lewicki. “People of any age and background will be able to point the telescope outward to investigate our Solar System, deep space, or join us in our study of near-Earth asteroids.”
Planetary Resources will use the proceeds from the Kickstarter campaign to launch the telescope, fund the creation of the public interface, cover the fulfillment costs for all of the products and services listed in the pledge levels, and fund the immersive educational curriculum for students everywhere. Any proceeds raised beyond the goal will allow for more access to classrooms, museums and science centers, and additional use by individual Kickstarter backers.
However, if they fail to reach the $1 million goal, they receive none of the money. According to Jeff Foust at the NewSpace Journal quoted Lewicki as saying, if that happens, they’ll proceed with their current plans, including development of a small prototype satellite, called Arkyd 3, that is planned for launch next year.
Here are a few of the donation levels:
• Your Face in Space – the #SpaceSelfie: For US$25, the team will upload an image of the campaign backer’s choice to display on the ARKYD, snap a photo of it with the Earth in the background, and transmit it to the backer. This space ‘photo booth’ allows anyone to take (or gift) a unique Space Selfie image that connects a personal moment with the cosmos in an unprecedented, yet tangible way.
• Explore the Cosmos: Higher pledge levels provide students, astronomers and researchers with access to the ARKYD main optic for detailed observations of the cosmos, galaxies, asteroids and our Solar System.
• Support Education Worldwide: At the highest levels, pledgers can offer the K-12 school, science center, university, or any interested group of their choice access to the ARKYD for use in interactive educational programming to strengthen STEM education worldwide. The full pledge list and ARKYD technical specifications can be found here.
“When we launched Planetary Resources last year, we had an extraordinary response from the general public,” said Peter Diamandis, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Planetary Resources, Inc.. “Tens of thousands of people contacted us and wanted to be involved. We are using this Kickstarter campaign as a mechanism to engage the community in a productive way.”
During a webcast today to make their Kickstarter announcement Diamandis said, “In the last 50 years, space exploration has been led by national governmental agencies with their own set of priorities. Imagine not having to wait for Congress to decide what missions will fly!”
1998 QE2 on closest approach to Earth this Friday on May 31st. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech).
A large asteroid visits our fair corner of the solar system this week, and with a little planning you may just be able to spot it.
Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) 285263 (1998 QE2) will pass 5.8 million kilometres from the Earth on Friday, May 31st at 20:59 Universal Time (UT) or 4:59PM EDT. Discovered in 1998 during the LIncoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey looking for such objects, 1998 QE2 will shine at magnitude +10 to +12 on closest approach. Estimates of its size vary from 1.3 to 2.9 kilometres, with observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2010 placing the ballpark figure towards the high end of the scale at 2.7 kilometres in diameter.
1998 QE2 would fit nicely with room to spare in Oregon’s 8 kilometre-wide Crater Lake.
Though this passage is over 15 times as distant as the Earth’s Moon, the relative size of this space rock makes it of interest. This is the closest approach of 1998 QE2 for this century, and there are plans to study it with both the Arecibo and Goldstone radio telescopes to get a better description of its size and rotation as it sails by. Expect to see radar maps of 1998 QE2 by this weekend.
“Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target… we expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface features,” said astronomer and principal JPL investigator Lance Benner.
An Amor-class asteroid, 1998 QE2 has an orbit of 3.77 years that takes it from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to just exterior of the Earth’s orbit. 1998 QE2 currently comes back around to our vicinity roughly every 15 years, completing about 4 orbits as it does so. Its perihelion exterior to our own makes it no threat to the Earth. This week’s passage is the closest for 1998 QE2 until a slightly closer pass on 0.038 Astronomical Units on May 27th, 2221. Note that on both years, the Earth is just over a month from aphelion (its farthest point from the Sun) which falls in early July.
Of course, the “QE2” designation has resulted in the inevitable comparisons to the size of the asteroid in relation to the Queen Elizabeth II cruise liner. Asteroid designations are derived from the sequence in which they were discovered in a given year. 1998 QE2 was the 55th asteroid discovered in the period running from August 1st to 16th 1998.
Perhaps we could start measuring asteroids in new and creative units, such as “Death Stars” or “Battlestars?”
But the good news is, you can search for 1998 QE2 starting tonight. The asteroid is currently at +12th magnitude in the constellation Centaurus and will be cruising through Hydra on its way north into Libra Friday on May 31st. You’ll need a telescope to track the asteroid as it will never top +10th magnitude, which is the general threshold for binocular viewing under dark skies. Its relative southern declination at closest approach means that 1998 QE2 will be best observed from northern latitudes of +35° southward. The farther south you are, the higher it will be placed in the sky after dusk.
A wide field view of the passage of 1998 QE2 this week, from May 27th through June 2nd. (Created by the author in Starry Night).
Still, if you can spot the constellation Libra, it’s worth a try. Many observers in the southern U.S. fail to realize that southern hemisphere sites like Omega Centauri in the constellation Centaurus are visible in the evening low to the south at this time of year. Libra sits on the meridian at local midnight due south for northern hemisphere observers, making it a good time to try for the tiny asteroid.
Visually, 1998 QE2 will look like a tiny, star-like point in the eye-piece of a telescope. Use low power and sketch or photograph the field of view and compare the positions of objects about 10 minutes apart. Has anything moved? We caught sight of asteroid 4179 Toutatis last year using this method.
A closeup look at the passage of 1998 QE2, covering a 48 hour span centered on closest approach on May 31st. (Created by the author in Starry Night).
1998 QE2 will also pass near some interesting objects that will serve as good “guideposts” to track its progress.
We find the asteroid about 5° north of the bright +2.5 magnitude star Iota Centauri on the night of May 28th. It then crosses the border into the constellation Hydra about 6° south of the +3 magnitude star Gamma Hydrae (Star Trek fans will recall that this star lies in the Neutral Zone) on May 29th. Keep a careful eye on 1998 QE2 as it passes within 30’ (about the diameter of a Full Moon) of the +8th magnitude galaxy Messier 83 centered on May 28th at 19:00 UT/3:00 PM EDT. This will provide a fine opportunity to construct a stop-motion animated .gif of the asteroid passing by the galaxy.
Another good opportunity to pinpoint the asteroid comes on the night on Thursday, May 30th as it passes within 30’ of the +3.3 magnitude star Pi Hydrae.
From there, it’s on to closest approach day. 1998 QE2 crosses into the constellation Libra early on Friday May 31st. The Moon will be at Last Quarter phase and won’t rise until well past local midnight, aiding in your quest.
At its closest approach, 1998 QE2 have an apparent motion of about 1 angular degree every 3 hours, or about 2/3rds the diameter of a Full Moon every hour. This isn’t quite fast enough to see in real time like asteroid 2012 DA14 was earlier this year, but you should notice its motion after about 10 minutes at medium power. Passing at ~465 Earth diameters distant, 1998 QE2 will show a maximum parallax displacement of just a little over 7 arc minutes at closest approach.
For telescopes equipped with setting circles, knowing the asteroid’s precise position is crucial. This allows you to aim at a fixed position just ahead of its path and “ambush” it as it drifts by. For the most precise positions in right ascension and declination, be sure to check out JPL’s ephemeris generator for 1998 QE2.
After its closest passage, 1998 QE2 will pass between the +3.3 & +2.7 magnitude stars Brachium (Sigma Librae) and Zubenelgenubi (Alpha Librae) around 4:00 UT on June 1st. Dedicated observers can continue to follow its northeastward trek into early June.
Slooh will also be carrying the passage of 1998 QE2 on Friday, May 31ststarting at 5:00 PM EDT/21:00 UT.
Of course, the hypothetical impact of a space rock the size of 1998 QE2 would spell a very bad day for the Earth. The Chicxulub impact basin off of the Yucatán Peninsula was formed by a 10 kilometre impactor about 4 times larger than 1998 QE2 about 65 million years ago. We can be thankful that 1998 QE2 isn’t headed our way as we watch it drift silently by this week. Hey, unlike the dinosaurs, WE have a space program… perhaps, to paraphrase science fiction author Larry Niven, we can hear the asteroid whisper as we track its progress across the night sky, asking humanity “How’s that space program coming along?”
The two main smoke trails left by the Russian meteorite as it passed over the city of Chelyabinsk. Credit: AP Photo/Chelyabinsk.ru
It’s been about three months since that infamous meteor broke up over Chelyabinsk, Russia. In that time, there’s been a lot of conversation about how we can better protect ourselves against these space rocks with a potentially fatal (from humanity’s perspective) gravitational attraction to Earth.
This week, the European Space Agency officially inaugurated a “NEO Coordination Centre” that is intended to be asteroid warning central in the European Union. It will be the hub for early warnings on near-Earth objects (hence the ‘NEO’ in the name) under ESA’s space situational awareness program.
ESA estimates that of the 600,000 asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun, about 10,000 of them are NEOs. (They define NEOs as asteroids or comets with sizes of several feet up to several tens of miles.)
NASA, of course, is also gravely concerned about the threat NEOs present. Its administrator, Charles Bolden, talked about this at a Congressional hearing about asteroids in March.
Before delving into the threat, Bolden took a metaphorical deep breath to talk about the dozens of asteroids — a meter or larger — that slam into Earth’s atmosphere each year. Most of them burn up harmlessly, and further, 80 tons of dust-like material rain on Earth daily.
A notable meteor that did cause some damage took place about 100 years ago, in 1908, when an object broke up over an isolated area in Russia and flattened trees for miles. Bolden characterized that as a statistically one-in-a-thousand year event, but added that the “real catch” is this type of event could happen at any time.
NASA, however, is seeking out those that cause a threat. It is supposed to find 90 per cent of asteroids 140 meters or larger by 2020, and is making progress towards that goal. (By comparison, the Chelyabinsk object was estimated at 17 to 20 meters.)
Nine radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2007 PA8 obtained between by NASA’s 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna. The part of the asteroid closest to the antenna is at top. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
So how to best monitor the threat? Bolden outlined a few ideas: crowdsourcing, coordinating with other federal agencies and making use of automatic feeds from different telescopes throughout the world (as NASA does right now.)
Bolden emphasized that none of the asteroids we have found is on a collision course with the Earth. Still, NASA and other science experts are not complacent.
In the same hearing, John Holdren — the president’s assistant on science and technology — recommended following a National Academy of Sciences report to spend upwards of $100 million a year on asteroid detection and characterization. To mitigate the threat, Holdren further recommended a visit to an asteroid by 2025, which would perhaps cost $2 billion.
