Asteroid the size of a small truck buzzes Earth: NASA

Another close call (about 65,000 miles or so) yesterday. One of these days! It is a regular thing now it seems. These rocks just keep sneaking in.

Quote from the brains at NASA "
(Reuters) - An asteroid the size of a small truck zoomed past Earth four times closer than the moon on Saturday, the latest in a parade of visiting celestial objects that has raised awareness of potentially hazardous impacts on the planet.

NASA said Asteroid 2013 LR6 was discovered about a day before its closest approach to Earth, which occurred at 12:42 a.m. EDT (0442 GMT on Saturday) about 65,000 miles over the Southern Ocean, south of Tasmania, Australia.

The 30-foot-wide (10-metre-wide) asteroid posed no threat."

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Sat Jun 8, 2013 10:29am EDT

Pretty soon, BOOM ZOOM!! (hope not) watch the skys (space) !!
sourcewww.reuters.com...

Here's a picture of the close passing rock in this article www.cbc.ca... I bet there will be even more folks with good telescopes out there looking. It seems like a lot of these things are out there "close by" really something!!

Like this person said "Wow. We're really getting good at spotting these things and it will only get better as we build more and more dedicated telescopes. As well half meter diameter telescopes are well within reach of a serious amateur astronomers and clubs and they can do some serious astronomy and add to the database."

i like this topic very much..so curious like you sir..more and more discovery of that space rock in 2013..bery interesting post sir..s&f as soon..

Well there probably are debris fields external of our solar system that our solar system passes through on occasion. I wonder if we are not passing through one now considering the uptick in close calls and other planets, moon taking impacts lately. Hope we don't pass any rouge planets out there.

reply to post by Xeven


Yeah, I'm thinking this has been going on for decades (and eons probably). Its just recently we are hearing (and seeing) them zip by.

With so many more Amateur Astronomy clubs and folks jumping on the band wagon looking for these things, NASA is going to mention them when "they (NASA)" see's them a coming (and a going). In the past when not so many folks had scopes out a looking NASA probably did not tell us all the time...about some "close passes" me thinks.

Originally posted by RUFFREADY
Another close call (about 65,000 miles or so) yesterday. One of these days! It is a regular thing now it seems. These rocks just keep sneaking in.

Quote from the brains at NASA "The 30-foot-wide (10-metre-wide) asteroid posed no threat."

An object that size doesn't pose much threat even if it does impact the atmosphere. Depending on the composition, they usually explode and only small debris hits the ground, unless it's made of iron or other very dense material, which would be unusual.

It is nice that we are spotting more objects though, because some are a threat.

Originally posted by RUFFREADY
Another close call (about 65,000 miles or so) yesterday. One of these days! It is a regular thing now it seems...

Are there really more asteroids, or are we just better at detecting them (more people looking with better equipment)?

Originally posted by Xeven
Well there probably are debris fields external of our solar system that our solar system passes through on occasion. I wonder if we are not passing through one now considering the uptick in close calls and other planets, moon taking impacts lately.

No. You can look at the orbits of these objects, they're not coming from outside the solar system. They're just normal, small near earth asteroids. Until fairly recently we didn't have the capability to detect them, now we do but only when they get very close to earth. Thus we don't get much warning on small asteroids.

Welcome to the Asteroid Belt!



1. This belt is located? Between Mars and Jupiter .

2. This belt was discovered in the year? 1801

3. This belt was discovered by? Giuseppe Piazza

4. The first object ever discovered in this belt was: Ceres

5. The following is a list of ten objects in this belt: Ceres, Gaspra, More than 100,000 ateroids, Pallas, Juno, Sylvia, Doris, Hector, Vista, Psyche.

6. Description of objects in this belt: Solid metal or rocky objects of varied size.

7. Description of conditions at the surface of the objects in this belt: Rocky and/or Metallic (iron and nickel)

8. This belt formed by material unable to collect into a planet due to the gravitational pull of nearby Jupiter.

9. The chemical composition of objects in this belt: The Bright asteroids are made of pure Nickle and Iron. The Stoney ones are made out of Nickle, Iron, Magnesium-Silicates.

10. Motion of objects in this belt: When there in the belt they are susspended between Mars and Juputer but they sometimes get knocked out of the belt and get captured by another planet's gravity .

I think sometimes its like a game of Billiards (or pool) stuff knocking around out there. Earth, left corner pocket!