Asteroid 153201 (2000 WO107) will miss the Earth by nearly 2.7 million miles on Sunday. Observations of the asteroid also put its size somewhere between four football fields. That wide variance comes from the difficulty in determining the size of relatively small objects so far away.
What has me scratching my head is why this particular Near Earth Object (NEO) is getting so much attention. The trio of NEOs that will (again safely) approach Earth on Thanksgiving Day are far more interesting. This includes asteroid 2018 RQ4, which will come 10 times closer than Sunday's.
Other things to check out:
Dinosaurs were doing just fine until the asteroid hit, new research says - CNET
The new study says that right up until the end of the Cretaceous period, several diverse species of herbivores -- hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, ankylosaurs and titanosaurs -- as well as predators, including tyrannosaurs and abelisaurs, were dominant across Americas and the globe.
"This all builds to show a picture in which these ancient animas were not seemingly in decline and were still in fact the main component of most land-based ecosystems," the museum said.
Three Thanksgiving Asteroids to Zoom Past Earth This Week, Ahead of Lunar Eclipse
Three asteroids are set to sail past the Earth around Thanksgiving, ahead of a lunar eclipse early next week.
On November 25, a space rock dubbed 2020 VK6 will make its closest approach to Earth at 4:05 p.m., coming within 3.1 million miles of Earth, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Studies (CNEOS).
This is equivalent to around 13 times the average distance between the Earth and the moon, CNEOS data shows.
Astronomers estimate that the asteroid, which is travelling at around 25,000 miles per hour, measures up to 157 feet in diameter.
Govt teacher discovers three asteroids, roots for developing scientific temperament : The Tribune
Pankaj Sharma, a science teacher from Government Middle School, Bhoewali, was part of a 10-member team, which participated in the All-India Asteroid Search Programme by Ignited Minds-SKYAAC Saptarishi India Asteroid Search Campaign under the umbrella of International Astronomical Search Cooperation (IASC), which has been affiliated with the NASA and the Vigyan Prasar (VIPNET).
The programme allows participants to use specialised software to analyse images taken by Pan-STARRS observatory in University of Hawaii.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Scientists recalculate that Asteroid Apophis is speeding up, might hit Earth in 2068- Technology
The near-Earth asteroid Apophis rose to prominence after its discovery in 2004 as initial calculations of its orbit had indicated that there was a 2.7 percent chance of it colliding with the Earth during a close flyby in 2029. Although advanced calculations ruled out the impact scenario, it now seems that Apophis is likely to collide with our world in the year 2068.
A team of scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA have conducted a new study where they have factored in a phenomenon left out earlier to calculate the chances of asteroid Apophis colliding with Earth. The reassessment has shown that there is a tiny impact probability which stands at around 1 in 1,50,000.
Astronomy: Earth's second-known minimoon Asteroid 2020 CD3 orbited for 3 years | Science |
RH120 circled our planet between Septemeber 2006 and June 2007, after which it left for interstellar space.
CD3 was found in February this year by astronomers Kacper Wierzchos and Teddy Pruyne through the Catalina Sky Survey, just before it left orbit in March.
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Due to their rarity, the discovery was met with a great deal of excitement and an international team of 23 researchers began tracking it through a number of telescopes, including the LDT.
Dinosaurs might have gone extinct without asteroid impact
Some paleontologists think they wouldn't have. They believe dinosaurs were already declining tens of millions of years before the Chicxulub asteroid hit and triggered volcanic eruptions and a massive nuclear winter that wiped out all non-avian dinosaur species. However, new research suggests that dinosaurs were actually thriving everywhere until that catastrophic event.
"Extinction and speciation is a very complicated and nuanced system, with many many factors involved," Bonsor said. "A drop in speciation rates certainly can indicate a group might go extinct, but it's not necessarily a definite case either way. We also have to take into account that the speciation rates in those groups was not actually in decline, and we just haven't found enough fossils to give a clear picture of how well they were doing."
Germany joins JAXA's low-cost deep space test mission - SpaceNews
COLOGNE, Germany — The German Aerospace Center, DLR, has partnered with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on a planned low-cost asteroid mission called Destiny+, expected to launch toward the asteroid 3200 Phaethon in 2024.
DLR will build the Destiny Dust Analyzer instrument, which will measure the properties of cosmic dust during the spacecraft's four-year cruise and its flyby of the 5.8-kilometer asteroid.
The spacecraft will test innovative technologies that JAXA hopes to utilize in its future deep space exploration missions.
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