A curious object is about to fly past Earth

A curious object is about to fly past Earth only 130,000 km (0.3 lunar distances) away. Catalogued as a 10m-class asteroid, 2010 AL30 has an orbital period of almost exactly 1 year.

source:spaceweather.com... (12 of January edition)

This is an interesting one. It could be just some large space junk, or... I guess we will know more in the next few hours . Oh, do we have space junk that can be like 10 meters wide?

Star and flag, nice find! I will be sure and keep my eyes tuned to the sky, sounds like we should be able to see it pretty good! Thanks for the post.

reply to post by Romanian


Forgive me, but I want to know how wide that is in miles or feet?

reply to post by space cadet


Eh?!

10 meters?

In miles!?

You'll find that there aren't many miles in 10 meters mate..and only about 33 feet.

reply to post by space cadet


lol, ok. 10 meters is about 30 feet , not large at all . The object will have better visibility by tomorrow, 13th of January . I see 3 possibilities:

1) Small asteroid
2)Space Junk
3) UFO

1) i do not know as the orbiting period seem to be 1 year for this object, so it is like it belongs to the Earth somehow
2) very likely, but do we have 30 feet sized Space Junk ?
3) I wish

O, NASA claims it is 18 Meters (about 60 feet) , so is this space junk??

Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Mag.
Size

2010 AL30
Jan. 13
0.3 LD
14
18 m

reply to post by Romanian


i hope its aliens.

I watch alot of dog whisperer and i would love for a intergallactic group of ceasar millans to come help my planet.

reply to post by spikey

M-type asteroids are asteroids of partially known composition; they are moderately bright (albedo 0.1–0.2). Some, but not all, are made of nickel-iron, either pure or mixed with small amounts of stone. These are thought to be pieces of the metallic core of differentiated asteroids that were fragmented by impacts, and are thought to be the source of iron meteorites. M-type asteroids are the third most common asteroid type

en.wikipedia.org...

Awesome. I should be able to see this if it aint snowing.

reply to post by heyo


wow, got your own back-yard telescope? if YES, can you post a pic here? this way we would have first had info on this fly-by..

Oh, that's great. A 60-foot asteroid, passing Earth within 3-tenths of the distance to the Moon, made of iron, and with the Earth's magnetic field moving toward Russia at increasing speed. Can't see anything un-predictable about that. It's not like iron is attracted to a magentic field, or such.

Thanks for sharing. S&F.

Here the image. What is it?

reply to post by Larryman


Well first off all its a 30 foot asteroid and second its a third of the moons distance not 3 tenths so we are pretty safe

cheers

Very interesting! Thanks for the head's up!

JPL orbital diagram animation

So....
Exactly when is this thing passing by?
All I got were the size and dimensions.
I want to see it if it sails through Orion, I get a great vantage of Orion where I live.


Nevermind. I found the ephemeris.



[edit on 12-1-2010 by havok]

To the person who said something like, "Dude, it's a third, not 3/10ths, so we're safe." : Really? At first, I was like, "Wow! HUGE difference!" (sarcasm) But then I thought, maybe that smiley means he/she's joking. Were you being serious when you made that comparison? (Because in my mind, 3 1/3 percent is not that much of a difference. I'm giving you credit in faith that you were just joking.

reply to post by Romanian

Originally posted by japhrimu
To the person who said something like, "Dude, it's a third, not 3/10ths, so we're safe." : Really? At first, I was like, "Wow! HUGE difference!" (sarcasm) But then I thought, maybe that smiley means he/she's joking. Were you being serious when you made that comparison? (Because in my mind, 3 1/3 percent is not that much of a difference.

I'm giving you credit in faith that you were just joking.

thanks for the heads up...there's my ride

a third, 3/10, 3 1/3%, 33.3333%; who's counting?

[edit on 12-1-2010 by reject]

Originally posted by Romanian
... Oh, do we have space junk that can be like 10 meters wide?

Yes -- There may be space junk that big.

For example, the 3rd stage booster for the Apollo missions to the Moon (the S-IVB) is 18 meters high and 6.5 meters in diameter. The S-IVBs for Apollo 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 were discarded and put into a solar orbit -- i.e., they are still out there somewhere.

I'm not saying that's what this is; I'm only pointing out that there is some big man-made space junk out there.

[edit on 1/12/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

Dashing through the constellations of Orion, Taurus, and Pisces rules out the object of being terresterial origin such as boosters from rockets or space metallic junk, if indeed it does not show any characteristic of being meteorites or chunk of rock.

If it is just a chunk of rock, there really is not much of a concern and hope that there will be nothing, asteroid or gravitational pull, that will deflect its orbital path to align it onto Earth or our moon.

The only major concern, if it is indeed a crafted object, is when it starts to deccelerate within our vicinity.......

Originally posted by SeekerofTruth101
Dashing through the constellations of Orion, Taurus, and Pisces rules out the object of being terresterial origin such as boosters from rockets or space metallic junk, if indeed it does not show any characteristic of being meteorites or chunk of rock.

The object is only "dashing through" those constellations as seen from Earth -- as the background constellations.

All artificial satellites seen from Earth could be said to be "dashing through" one constellation or another. I saw the ISS fly though Orion once -- and what I mean is that the stars in Orion were the background stars that the ISS was flying against.

reply to post by Box of Rain


While that is true, do know that NORAD keeps track of every space junk, down to a piece of nut, more so when this 'oddity' is of size that can be seen with telescope, let alone radar tracked. NORAD certainly isnt being very forthcoming with informing the scientific community what it is, while the russians with equal capabilities, are saying something else.....