Asteroid 433 Eros To Make Closest Approach Since 1975

I don't know if this goes in Fragile Earth, News, Space, or Sci&Tech, but here you go:

Asteroid 433 Eros To Make Closest Approach Since 1975

On Tuesday, January 31, asteroid 433 Eros will come closer to Earth than it has in 37 years, traveling across the night sky in the constellations Leo, Sextans and Hydra. At its closest pass of 16.6 million miles (26.7 million km) the relatively bright 21-mile (34-km) -wide asteroid will be visible with even modest backyard telescopes, approaching magnitude 8, possibly even 7. It hasn’t come this close since 1975, and won’t do so again until 2056!

Although Eros will be making a “close” approach to Earth on Jan. 31/Feb. 1, there is no danger of a collision.

Pretty cool! I hope we have a clear night - would love to see the love asteroid go by :-)

Just saw this story on CNN!

Way cool and hope I can spot it too!

Will be great to see,

I read in the article you linked that NASA landed a craft on this Asteroid - That I didn't know, very interesting.

Now look out for the crazy doomsday claims, and secret Alien space-Asteroid City!!

Originally posted by Soapusmaximus
Will be great to see,

I read in the article you linked that NASA landed a craft on this Asteroid - That I didn't know, very interesting.

Now look out for the crazy doomsday claims, and secret Alien space-Asteroid City!!

Crazy doomsday claims, and secret Alien space-Asteroid City?!

No perhaps not but I would venture to ask the following..

Seen Armageddon?
Apparently that scenario is now plausible.

Yay Hollywood.
Now look out for the crazy doomsday claims and correlations between the film Armageddon and the end of 2012.

Here we go. Buckle up. Put on your crash helmets. Incoming irrationality and fear.

Some interesting things on the surface of 433 EROS




Original image found here near.jhuapl.edu...


Did a nice little essay years ago on 433 EROS and that "Temple"

It is also no coincidence that the NearShoemaker made its Orbital insertion on the 14th February 2000 at 15:33 UT. See the 33? lol Check out its size 13x13x yep...33

en.wikipedia.org...

Not sure if I will get my Telescope out to see it or not as I am in the city and that direction is not good for viewing for me

reply to post by berkeleygal


It looks like I will be looking around the Leo constellation then, and see if I can spot it. Good thread

That object is a probe, which landed there.

5mi wide and 16 million miles away. how ever are you gonna see it?

In the NorthEast region of USA, those constellations should be coming up in the east after 10pm.
The weather has been warm for viewing.
For those even sky watching, Venus is visible in the SE(below and right of the moon) and Jupiter is just below the moon.
Mars also will be visible below Leo in the East.Saturn is visible in the SE after 2am.