Asteroid Alert

reply to post by ngchunter


Thats just a line you drew on a picture of some stars....

I live in South Australia, What time here can I see it? My time if you can please?

reply to post by LightAssassin


You can't. Not without a good scope.

reply to post by Phage


What time did it pass me then? Bloody hell, I thought I worked it out to be 11pm tonight (currently 2.07pm)

reply to post by LightAssassin

Sorry. I was wrong. It will pass over Oz around 16:30 UTC on the 27th. You'll have to do the time change, the dateline confuses me.

Hi All,

One of our GRAS users took this video of 2011 MD last night. Enjoy.

www.youtube.com...

Pete

reply to post by Phage


Oh, thats right, the spaceship , I mean Asteroid , slowed down, so it was recalculated to be three hours later, 2.00AM, And you're certain I cannot see it with the naked eye?

reply to post by GRASpete


Fixed your vid:

Originally posted by LightAssassin
reply to post by ngchunter

 

Thats just a line you drew on a picture of some stars....

I live in South Australia, What time here can I see it? My time if you can please?

It won't be visible to australia until about 8:40 GMT (allowing for astronomical twilight to finish first), sorry no idea what time zone you're in or how far that is from GMT. Its apparent position is extremely dependent on your exact position on the ground and you won't be able to see it without a very serious telescope. It'll be about magnitude 14.6 when it becomes visible to you. That's only one magnitude brighter than the central star in the ring nebula and much dimmer than the limiting visual and binocular magnitudes.

reply to post by ngchunter


Dammit, ok then, no need to get up at that ungodly hour then. Cheers.

Originally posted by Phage
Sorry. I was wrong.

Am I the only one who almost had a heart attack?

Concerning the asteroid, there are a lot of events coinciding between now and July 4th, so we'll have to wait and see, although I seriously doubt anything major will come from this.

reply to post by SonicInfinity


Haha, I was going to say the same thing, especially seeing he edited his original comment...but you cant knock someone who can admit theyre wrong.

T-Minus 1hr 24min and counting.

Comet Elenin is believed to be a hyperbolic comet, meaning it will never return

That is incorrect. Comet Elenin is believed to be making its first visit to the Sun since being perturbed from the Oort Cloud. However, it passed 3.96 AU from Saturn on its way in to perihelion, and it will pass 2.40 AU from Jupiter on the outward journey. Not very close, but the gravitational perturbations are enough to reduce the orbital period to approximately 11800 years.

Comet Elenin is therefore not on a hyperbolic orbit, and it WILL return.

reply to post by this_is_who_we_are


Nah, it's another 3 and a half hours....it got pushed back because of a 'miscalculation', supposedly. Maybe the ship just slowed down to see just how bad we've screwed our planet....Kind of like the occasional Funniest Non-Inhabitants of our Galaxy show....with a bit of Survivor Satellite mine field thrown in the mix.

The current orbital elements of 2011 MD (provided by the JPL Small Bodies Database) only cover an observational arc of 4 days. That is far too small for meaningful calculations of future close approaches. Nevertheless, I have integrated the orbit of 2011 MD forward to 2100 AD using these elements, and the closest approach is calculated to be 0.0634 AU (approx. 9.5 million kms, or 25 times the distance to the Moon) on 2036 May 29.4. More observations spanning a greater observational arc are needed for precise calculations covering a century of orbital motion, but past experience leads me to believe that this tiny object will be lost before enough observations are made.

reply to post by LightAssassin


COMMANDING OFFICER: "We estimate it has a diameter of over five hundred and fifty kilometers and a mass roughly one fourth the size of our moon."
GENERAL GREY: "A meteor?"
SECOND OFFICER: "No Sir. Definitely not."
GENERAL GREY: "How do you know?"
SECOND OFFICER: "Well, er... it's slowing down."
GENERAL GREY: "It's doing what?"
SECOND OFFICER: "It's... slowing down, Sir."

- "Independence Day"

Have i missed the latest doomsday event? This site is a hotspot for false alarms

MD 2011 was supposed to "safely" pass Earth at about 1PM EST (about 37 minutes ago).

I assume it did already, anybody know for sure?

Guess it did already pass by...

Asteroid Just Buzzed Earth—Came Closer Than the Moon

An asteroid the size of a school bus gave Earth an extremely close shave around 1:14 p.m. ET today.

The rogue object—dubbed asteroid 2011 MD—buzzed by at a distance of 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) from our planet's surface, or roughly 30 times closer than the moon.

Source: National Geographic

Originally posted by ikonoklast
MD 2011 was supposed to "safely" pass Earth at about 1PM EST (about 37 minutes ago).

I assume it did already, anybody know for sure?

I assume it didn't. We're all dead aren't we?