Has NASA confirmed the collision with Asteroid 2012 DA14 at February 15, 2013?

Yes, DA14 is going to (in astronomical terms) is going to Buzz the Earth. Now, my question is, What if it hits a satellite, or two? and the fuel in said satellite makes a big enough explosion to change the trajectory? Or if it hits The international space station??? OH NO, didn't someone make a prediction that it was going to come out of orbit and crash??? Who was that? (scarcasim)

There is ALOT of junk floating out there, I doubt I'll see it. However, we all have a sight to behold in December. Comet ISON. If it cooperates, we should be able to see it during the day, and it should be brighter than the full moon.

reply to post by VeritasAequitas

Is it ever possible for one of these asteroids to get caught in the Earth's gravity/orbit?

Not at 7.82 km/sec.
At a distance of 21,000 miles escape velocity is 4.85 km/sec.

reply to post by Phage


Are there any other factors that would play in to this? Like what if something was to pass really close between the Moon and Earth? Anyways to get caught between the two?

reply to post by VeritasAequitas

No. No other factors.
Gravity works.

reply to post by Phage


Lol, no other factors; or no other known factors? Either answer is perfectly fine, but I'm sure you could appreciate the difference between the two.

reply to post by VeritasAequitas

You're right.
The flying spaghetti monster just might try to eat it and slow it down enough to enter orbit around the Earth.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by VeritasAequitas

 

You're right.
The flying spaghetti monster just might try to eat it and slow it down enough to enter orbit around the Earth.

LOL Phage!

They MAKE it come to this, don't they??

You're a ROCK!

Cuhail

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by VeritasAequitas

 

You're right.
The flying spaghetti monster just might try to eat it and slow it down enough to enter orbit around the Earth.

Oh Phage, the wise one, has gave us another pearl of wisdom!!! I love how you put things sometimes!! LOL
Now the question is what will we do with the flying spaghetti monster after it slows it down???

I've been waiting for this... I've read many different estimations. Some saying it could come as close (or closer) as one tenth the lunar distance. That's pretty close.

Although it would be (ROUGH estimation here) appearing something like over several thousand times smaller than the moon, if it does come that close... would condition allow us to see it? Probably not I'm guessing... but it would be interesting if we could. If somehow the conditions could allow it. I mean with the naked eye of course. I'm sure plenty of people with the right equipment will see it.

If we see DO see it... It probably got way too close I think.

reply to post by Phage


An appropriate answer would have been fine, ya know?

reply to post by NotAnAspie

In a link to an article I found at spaceweather.com It should be easy for amateur astonomers to see, if it were standing still, but it will be going very fast and be very hard to track.

science.nasa.gov... :

"Jan. 28, 2013: Talk about a close shave. On Feb. 15th an asteroid about half the size of a football field will fly past Earth only 17,200 miles above our planet's surface. There's no danger of a collision, but the space rock, designated 2012 DA14, has NASA's attention. "

"NASA radars will be monitoring the space rock as it approaches Earth closer than many man-made satellites. Yeomans says the asteroid will thread the gap between low-Earth orbit, where the ISS and many Earth observation satellites are located, and the higher belt of geosynchronous satellites, which provide weather data and telecommunications. "


"During the hours around closest approach, the asteroid will brighten until it resembles a star of 8th magnitude. Theoretically, that’s The problem, points out Yeomans, is speed. “The asteroid will be racing across the sky, moving almost a full degree (or twice the width of a full Moon) every minute. That’s going to be hard to track.” "

reply to post by Xcouncil=wisdom


Meh, that's easy enough to handle with a widefield refractor and accurate goto capability, but unfortunately for me I'm on the wrong side of the world to see it at closest approach. I might be able to see it later on the outbound leg though.

I hope not my birthday is the 16th, and it falls on a Saturday, I have waited too long for it too be a Saturday again

I mean, with all the Space Junk, and our planetary pollution levels, the greatest threat would be for it to take out a good swipe of the garbage and send it hurling towards earth.

reply to post by Sparta


Happy early Birthday! Yes a Saturday Birthday is something special!

I wonder what these guys are doing about it?

www.afspc.af.mil...

I mean....the asteroid coming in below the space station and inside the orbit of other satellites, and as already been mentioned all the space junk...that thing has got to bring some chaos to our tracking of all that stuff. And according to the commercials I've seen, our Air Force Space Command claims to be on top of all of it.
So's I sent em an email, sure to link the NASA page so they'd know what I was talking about:

"I would like a general overview of the complexity of dealing with and preparing for a known event such as asteroid 2012 DA14 that according to NASA will come inbetween the orbit of some of our satelites including the ISS and Earth.

science.nasa.gov...

As I know we map all of the debri we can in orbit, what is the the asteroids projected effect on them, and how will their dissruptions affect other satellite activity?

Thank you"

and you can too:
www.afspc.af.mil...

I will admit, I have limited knowledge on trajectroy, and things of such, However, I'd still like to know what would happen if the asteroid were to hit the ISS. OOOOHHHH PPPHAGE!!!!!! Where are you?????

I'm going to wait for it outside my house.

Set up my digital camera.

And film myself batting that sucker back into outer space with my Lousiville slugger.

ELE averted.

YouTube uploaded.

Fame acquired.

Pu$$y lining up.

reply to post by HIWATT


Spoken like a true man!!!! That is funny. I will let you have your dream of grandure, because reality really really sucks. My day has been made, you made me laugh, Thank you!!!!!

reply to post by Xcouncil=wisdom


It's not going below the space station. It's probably going below the geostationary satellites, however. Earlier this year there was a slim chance of collision with a couple of those geostationary and geosynchronous satellites though. I covered that here:

Even at that time, however, the odds were that it would miss all satellites completely. If I were to rerun this analysis with the latest astrometric data included from earlier this month it would probably eliminate the possibility altogether. I'd love to do just that, but my desktop is currently occupied running calculations on a different asteroid right now.