NASA's Dawn Spacecraft to Reach Asteroid This Weekend (Look Up At The Sky TONIGHT!!!!!)

news.nationalgeographic.com...

After almost four years of interplanetary travel, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will enter into orbit around Vesta, the second largest known asteroid, very early this Saturday.

Mission managers have been steering Dawn ever closer to the 310-mile-wide (500-kilometer-wide) asteroid, and they expect the craft will be captured into orbit around Vesta at about 1 a.m. ET.

Dawn had to travel more than 1.6 billion miles (2.5 billion kilometers) to reach Vesta, which is part of the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. (Explore an interactive solar system.)

Vesta is a dry, rocky world that looks like it's been reshaped by volcanism and lava flows, similar to tectonic activity seen on Earth and the moon. Meanwhile Ceres may have a primitive, much darker surface with a softer interior, perhaps filled with water.

Get ready all you skywatchers! This weekend you now get to see a bright light in the sky...not a UFO, but an asteroid. Stare this puppy down...it may be your once in a lifetime chance to witness a part of Earth's history.

But if you think about it....a 500 km wide asteroid is one HUGE rock. If that thing hit Earth, we'd all be goners. Kudos to NASA for traveling a few billion kilometers to study the asteroid. I hope one day scientists can use information gathered from the asteroid to be able to further explore space opportunities...like sending an astronaut to Mars.

So, at 1AM tonight we should be able to look up and see this thing in sky? I'll be watching.

I'll be pulling out my scope tonight and the skies are clear!

A question, if I might trouble you with it folks... where precisely in the sky is this thing showing up, and should one be able to see it from south east England??

reply to post by TrueBrit


I haven't found the location myself. Just asked in my astronomy forums.
Someone posted a link to asteroid and comet locators here recently. I can't find it either.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
A question, if I might trouble you with it folks... where precisely in the sky is this thing showing up, and should one be able to see it from south east England??

Stellarium, the free software showing the night sky, will show you it's exact position. Currently not very far from the moon. Rises at about 11:30 pm in the UK.

reply to post by Darkstar2


Thanks to you and to mugger for your answers. Unfortunately the question is now moot since a liberal smear of cloud has occluded the large majority of the sky, so I will likely as not be unable to veiw the event from my balcony ...damnit.

After almost four years of interplanetary travel, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will enter into orbit around Vesta, the second largest known asteroid, very early this Saturday.

Mission managers have been steering Dawn ever closer to the 310-mile-wide (500-kilometer-wide) asteroid, and they expect the craft will be captured into orbit around Vesta at about 1 a.m. ET.

"Very early this Saturday"....... "about 1 a.m."............ that would mean it happed last night.

The next "1 a.m." will be Sunday.... tonight.

Please direct your comments to this ongoing Thread
Here comes the Dawn



Thanks

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