Comet Watch: June 11, 2085?
Jun. 1st, 2005 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mabfanRegular readers here know that I keep track of reports of possible future asteroid impact.
According to the article "Comet put on list of potential Earth impactors" by David L. Chandler, posted by New Scientist magazine today, Comet Catalina 2005 JQ5 has been added to the list of potentially threatening near-Earth objects.
Usually, when an object that might collide with Earth is first spotted, more observations are taken to rule out the possibility of a collision. However, according to the article, that's not quite what happened with this one:
But don't panic yet. The current odds of an impact are 1 in 120 million.
According to the article "Comet put on list of potential Earth impactors" by David L. Chandler, posted by New Scientist magazine today, Comet Catalina 2005 JQ5 has been added to the list of potentially threatening near-Earth objects.
Usually, when an object that might collide with Earth is first spotted, more observations are taken to rule out the possibility of a collision. However, according to the article, that's not quite what happened with this one:
Astronomers expected the addition of further observations to the calculations to rule out any possibility of a collision, as happens with most newly-seen objects.
But that did not quite happen. The comet's predicted pathway actually drew even closer to making a perfect bull’s-eye with the Earth - its predicted path passes within 1000 kilometres of the where the centre of our 12,700-km-diameter planet will be around that time.
But don't panic yet. The current odds of an impact are 1 in 120 million.
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Date: 2005-06-01 08:40 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2005-06-01 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-01 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 01:57 am (UTC)(I'm amused that you put two and two together like that...)
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Date: 2005-06-01 10:17 pm (UTC)He does spectral analysis of potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids, so that when we find one that definitely is going to hit, we'll know what it's made of so we'll be able to better plan how to mitigate.
Of course, all this assumes a LOT of lead time, and assumes we're watching a LOT of the sky closely. Congress? Funding, anyone?
Interestingly (to me, anyway), a couple of years ago my husband observed what was believed to be a near-Earth asteroid -- then, when it got closer to the sun, it lit up. It was actually a bare comet nucleus. I think it was the first time we had observations of a comet nucleus, because usually the halo precludes observing the nucleus.
Ain't that cool? (says proud wife)
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Date: 2005-06-02 01:58 am (UTC)Now that I know I have an "in" with the asteroid community, expect me to bug you more often... :-)
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Date: 2005-06-02 03:52 am (UTC)Now we have two "connections" -- I was the librarian too shy to tell you in advance I was going to be at ALA mid-winter (which is odd, because I'm not usually shy), and now the asteroid thing.... We support many of the same causes, I see!
See you at Worldcon or Nasfic? I know what you look like! (I'm not a stalker so please don't be frightened!)
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Date: 2005-06-02 12:30 pm (UTC)Sadly, we will not be at either Worldcon or NASFiC, as we don't have the money this year for either one. For cons, we're sticking to the local area, so our next one will be Readercon (unless you count a trip to the filk convention Contata).
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Date: 2005-06-02 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
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