Tag: asteroid

Asteroid 2004 BL86 Coming Close to Earth!

Get excited sky watchers! There is an asteroid that will be flying by very close to Earth tonight, January 26, 2015! Asteroid 2004 BL86 will come about 745,000 miles from Earth. That is equivalent to about 3 times as far away as the moon is from Earth. This event will not pose any threat to hitting our planet but it will give researchers a chance to observe a major asteroid up close! According to NASA, “Asteroid 2004 BL86 is big — about a third of a mile (a half-kilometer) in size. It will be the closest known asteroid this large to pass near Earth until 2027, when an asteroid called 1999 AN10 flies by.” The best chance at viewing this astronomical event will be from 8pm EST Monday until 1am EST on Tuesday, but it will not be observable by the naked eye. A telescope or binoculars may just do the trick however. OR if you don’t own any of that equipment, no worries! You can watch the event from the comfort of your own computer screen.

Here is the link to the 2004 BL86 asteroid event: http://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2014/12/06/potentially-hazardous-asteroid-357439-2004-bl86-close-encounter-online-event-26-jan-2015/

Farmer Finds Rare Meteorite!

It wasn’t a goose that laid a golden egg for one Missouri farmer — it was an asteroid. Scientists are analyzing an extremely rare meteorite found by a farmer in a tiny Missouri town called Conception Junction (population 202)

It wasn’t a goose that laid a golden egg for one Missouri farmer — it was an asteroid.

Scientists are analyzing an extremely rare meteorite found by a farmer in a tiny Missouri town called Conception Junction (population 202), reports Washington University in St. Louis, which helped identify the rock.

An unnamed farmer had found the unusually heavy stone buried in the side of hill. He sawed off the end of the stone and realized he had something that didn’t come from Earth.

 

The metal rock is studded on the inside with green olivine crystals. It is one of only 20 so-called pallasite meteorites that have been found in the United States.

These types of meteorites are believed to be fragments of large asteroids that had enough internal heat to begin melting, which allowed heavy metals to sink and form a core, while lighter elements became part of the rocky surface.

Pallasites are believed to come from the area where an asteroid’s metal core transitions to olivine in its lower mantle.

Scientists believe the Conception Junction meteorite was once part of an asteroid that flew in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter until it was nudged toward the inner solar system by Jupiter’s gravity field. Sliced and polished, the stone, which is now in the hands of private collectors, is worth about $200 a gram.

SCIENCE CHANNEL: Meteorite Men: Top 10 Meteorites

 

 

 

Huge Asteroid Headed For Close Encounter With Earth

A huge asteroid will pass closer to Earth than the moon Tuesday, giving scientists a rare chance for study without having to go through the time and expense of launching a probe, officials said.

Earth’s close encounter with Asteroid 2005 YU 55 will occur at 6:28 p.m. EST Tuesday, as the space rock sails about 201,000 miles from the planet.

“It is the first time since 1976 that an object of this size has passed this closely to the Earth. It gives us a great — and rare — chance to study a near-Earth object like this,” astronomer Scott Fisher, a program director with the National Science Foundation, said Thursday during a Web chat with reporters.

The orbit and position of the asteroid, which is about 1,312 feet in diameter, is well known, added senior research scientist Don Yeomans, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“There is no chance that this object will collide with the Earth or moon,” Yeomans said.

Thousands of amateur and professional astronomers are expected to track YU 55’s approach, which will be visible from the planet’s northern hemisphere. It will be too dim to be seen with the naked eye, however, and it will be moving too fast for viewing by the Hubble Space Telescope.

“The best time to observe it would be in the early evening on November 8 from the East Coast of the United States,” Yeomans said. “It is going to be very faint, even at its closest approach. You will need a decent-sized telescope to be able to actually see the object as it flies by.”

Scientists suspect YU 55 has been visiting Earth for thousands of years, but because gravitational tugs from the planets occasionally tweak its path, they cannot tell for sure how long the asteroid has been in its present orbit.

Track the asteroid, YU55, and track it’s journey as it passes by Earth on the NASA Asteroid & Comet Watch! 

Get Asteroid Fun Facts Here!