Near Earth Object LZ1 - scary

This asteroid passed by us in the last few hours. It's about the size of a city block 1600ft (500m), and passed by at about 14 moon distances (5.3 million kilometers). That fairly big and very close.

The scary bit is that it was only spotted a few days ago.

http://www.space.com/16154-asteroid-2012-lz1-earth-flyby.html

The 1,650-foot-wide (500-meter) near-Earth asteroid 2012 LZ1 came within 3.3 million miles (5.3 million kilometers) of our planet during its closest approach at 8 p.m. EDT Thursday (0000 GMT Friday). Since that's about 14 times the distance between the Earth and the moon, the asteroid was never close enough to threaten Earth, or to be seen by most backyard skywatchers.

But, this one and that one discovered a month or two ago, were both not spotted until they were right on top of us. That's the scary part.

And that one found a month back (I can't remember it's name off-hand), has a chance of whacking us with a Tunguska style impact on our pole, when it comes back in about 20 years IIRC.
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-Dave #2


3.2.0-33

But, this one and that one discovered a month or two ago, were both not spotted until they were right on top of us. That's the scary part.

And that one found a month back (I can't remember it's name off-hand), has a chance of whacking us with a Tunguska style impact on our pole, when it comes back in about 20 years IIRC.

But, this one and that one discovered a month or two ago, were both not spotted until they were right on top of us. That's the scary part.

And that one found a month back (I can't remember it's name off-hand), has a chance of whacking us with a Tunguska style impact on our pole, when it comes back in about 20 years IIRC.

I'm not embarrassed to post this ...

NEO Program

After we find them, then who does what with what ??

After we find them, then who does what with what ??

That was the point of my post. I wasn't inferring that nothing is being done at least in the identification arena as with the NEO program. Maybe there is nothing that can be done to deflect or destroy a big rock or snowball falling from space from a practical standpoint but it's stupid not to try.

I was also just thinking about how to change trajectory. Given time even a small rocket engine has the power to change course. The issue is the damn rock is going to be rotating. How do you push on a rotating rock in one direction? We would never be so lucky as to have the axis of rotation match up with the direction we need to push.

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I'm not too sure of the physics here, but if you alter the spin rate its possible that you will alter the drag, and so the trajectory?

As for not having an access in the right direction - any direction other than towards an impact with earth is a "good direction". This may of course mean altering its Earth-relative velocity such that while it still intersects our orbit it does so at a point that is out of harms way for now (buys us time)
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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I'm not too sure of the physics here, but if you alter the spin rate its possible that you will alter the drag, and so the trajectory?

As for not having an access in the right direction - any direction other than towards an impact with earth is a "good direction". This may of course mean altering its Earth-relative velocity such that while it still intersects our orbit it does so at a point that is out of harms way for now (buys us time)

we got 1 big falling from the sky lately in Quebec, Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0bHIqcDHFo

(its in french, its from our french tv)
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...This is not a new idea.

Altering the orbit for a rock the size of Central Park might be doable with a couple years notice. Altering the orbit of a Texas-sized iron lump, well...it was nice knowing all of you! :)