Asteroid 1998 QE2 is coming!
May 31, 2013 2:05 PM Subscribe
Watch Near Earth Asteroid 1998 QE2 live as it makes its closest approach to Earth. Basically NOW.
Also, it has its own moon!
Also, it has its own moon!
This looks like the opening of the original Outer Limits. Which of course means, this is all a lie and you are getting us to watch what THEY want us to. Well played, Westringia..
posted by mediocre at 2:07 PM on May 31, 2013
posted by mediocre at 2:07 PM on May 31, 2013
That's no Moon! Oh wait, yes it is.
posted by panboi at 2:09 PM on May 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by panboi at 2:09 PM on May 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
3.6 million miles. Ok. I can handle that.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 2:17 PM on May 31, 2013
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 2:17 PM on May 31, 2013
Now this is the perfect time to launch an invasion from space! All our telescopes and big radar dishes are focused on 1998 QE2 - we'd never see it coming. One second we've got a planet full of water, and the next...
Asteroid's Eleven: The Perfect Heist.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
Asteroid's Eleven: The Perfect Heist.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:22 PM on May 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
I used to get excited at these close approaches. Then a friend suggested I watch the movie Melancholia.
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:38 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by charlie don't surf at 2:38 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Two random thoughts about this.
First, it is *amazing* what the radar guys can do. In this case they send out a radar beam using a Megawatt transmitter at the 300-m telescope at Arecibo, PR. (Strong enough to flash-cook unlucky pigeons.) The beam strength falls off as distance squared (the inverse square law - conceptually, a constant amount of energy getting distributed over the surface area of a sphere, which grows as R^2). The beam partially reflects off the asteroid surface. Then it travels back to Earth, again falling off in strength as R^2 - so the signal that gets back to us has fallen off by the fourth power of the distance, even if the reflection is perfect. Then they receive this signal with the 70-m telescope at Goldstone, and measure the time delay and the signal Doppler shift. Time delay gives us distance, and so the depth of a feature on the surface; Doppler shift gives us rotation rate, and so the position on the surface - some fancy image processing and you get a surface map!
Second, it is *terrifying* how little we know about these NEOs. There are so many of them at the city-killer size range, and we have so little coverage on the sky, at least until the LSST comes on line. Meanwhile, the National Science Foundation keeps trying to shut down Arecibo and the Green Bank telescope because thanks to Congress, they are having great difficulty coming up with the ~10M$/year needed to keep them going. These are unique facilities! It's the budget equivalent of covering your eyes and stopping your ears and pretending that you're invisible, and I think it is beyond short-sighted.
(I am obviously very biased here, as a regular user of these facilities, but I do not work on asteroids or solar system objects of any sort.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:39 PM on May 31, 2013 [13 favorites]
First, it is *amazing* what the radar guys can do. In this case they send out a radar beam using a Megawatt transmitter at the 300-m telescope at Arecibo, PR. (Strong enough to flash-cook unlucky pigeons.) The beam strength falls off as distance squared (the inverse square law - conceptually, a constant amount of energy getting distributed over the surface area of a sphere, which grows as R^2). The beam partially reflects off the asteroid surface. Then it travels back to Earth, again falling off in strength as R^2 - so the signal that gets back to us has fallen off by the fourth power of the distance, even if the reflection is perfect. Then they receive this signal with the 70-m telescope at Goldstone, and measure the time delay and the signal Doppler shift. Time delay gives us distance, and so the depth of a feature on the surface; Doppler shift gives us rotation rate, and so the position on the surface - some fancy image processing and you get a surface map!
Second, it is *terrifying* how little we know about these NEOs. There are so many of them at the city-killer size range, and we have so little coverage on the sky, at least until the LSST comes on line. Meanwhile, the National Science Foundation keeps trying to shut down Arecibo and the Green Bank telescope because thanks to Congress, they are having great difficulty coming up with the ~10M$/year needed to keep them going. These are unique facilities! It's the budget equivalent of covering your eyes and stopping your ears and pretending that you're invisible, and I think it is beyond short-sighted.
(I am obviously very biased here, as a regular user of these facilities, but I do not work on asteroids or solar system objects of any sort.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:39 PM on May 31, 2013 [13 favorites]
I'm slicing limes, just in case I have to deliver on this.
posted by benito.strauss at 2:39 PM on May 31, 2013
posted by benito.strauss at 2:39 PM on May 31, 2013
Is this Bernanke's next idea for a stimulus?
posted by Lucubrator at 2:39 PM on May 31, 2013
posted by Lucubrator at 2:39 PM on May 31, 2013
I was already having an emotionally crap today. Now this, and remembering Melancholia.
*goes and has a lie down*
posted by Kitteh at 2:41 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
*goes and has a lie down*
posted by Kitteh at 2:41 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
I think there's a city-killing sized impact every (estimated) couple of thousand years. Even if one happens now, well, most of the planet is uninhabited, and, as long as it isn't big enough to make a huge tsunami or start a nuclear winter, we'd probably all look back and have a good laugh about it one day.
posted by thelonius at 3:01 PM on May 31, 2013
posted by thelonius at 3:01 PM on May 31, 2013
It's fortunate we live in a late era when most of the big shrapnel has stopped flying about. I mean, the Moon was probably formed when an object the size of Mars hit Earth, which shows that there used to be whole planets wandering around the Solar System, never mind asteroids the size of nine cruise liners.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:03 PM on May 31, 2013
posted by Kevin Street at 3:03 PM on May 31, 2013
Seems like a good opportunity to point out one of my favorite Twitter accounts: @lowflyingrocks, which will periodically brighten your day with the name, approximate size, relative velocity and approach distance of any near-Earth objects as they pass by.
posted by figurant at 3:08 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by figurant at 3:08 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
A little googling tells me that there have been several close observation missions, and even (to my surprise) a successful asteroid sampling and return mission by Japan in the last few years.
I'm intrigued by the idea of someday landing a probe that sets up an observation post on the surface of an asteroid -- some kind of radar station, or telescope perhaps? -- to record and/or relay observations from it's point of view as it travels. Sort of a periodically returning Voyager probe. Imagine being able to triangulate readings with those taken from Earth! Maybe there are known asteroids with large orbits that go somewhere especially interesting before returning to inner solar system?
posted by ceribus peribus at 3:26 PM on May 31, 2013
I'm intrigued by the idea of someday landing a probe that sets up an observation post on the surface of an asteroid -- some kind of radar station, or telescope perhaps? -- to record and/or relay observations from it's point of view as it travels. Sort of a periodically returning Voyager probe. Imagine being able to triangulate readings with those taken from Earth! Maybe there are known asteroids with large orbits that go somewhere especially interesting before returning to inner solar system?
posted by ceribus peribus at 3:26 PM on May 31, 2013
And here's an explanation of the radar imaging process described by RedOrGreen, with "horribly oversimplified cartoons" to help you see what's happening.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:28 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by benito.strauss at 3:28 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Then it travels back to Earth, again falling off in strength as R^2 - so the signal that gets back to us has fallen off by the fourth power of the distance, even if the reflection is perfect.
Counting distance there-and-back-again just doubles the distance, making (2R)^2, not squaring it, which you'd need for R^4. (Just a technical objection, not really affecting your larger point that the distances are huge and the signal is therefore weak on its return.)
posted by stebulus at 3:36 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Counting distance there-and-back-again just doubles the distance, making (2R)^2, not squaring it, which you'd need for R^4. (Just a technical objection, not really affecting your larger point that the distances are huge and the signal is therefore weak on its return.)
posted by stebulus at 3:36 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Melancholia. Not even once.
posted by vozworth at 4:40 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by vozworth at 4:40 PM on May 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Coincidence?
I think not.
posted by islander at 5:54 PM on May 31, 2013
Coincidence?
I think not.
posted by islander at 5:54 PM on May 31, 2013
Stebulus, about R^4 vs (2R)^2, my colleagues would love it if it didn't go as the 4th power, but alas. I think the radio waves are effectively being absorbed at the target (power received going as R^2) and then re-radiated (spreading out again as R^2 on the way back). There may sometimes be a specular reflection component (a glint) that scales as (2R)^2 but that's not the interesting part, as far as mapping is concerned. That's why there are really only 3 telescopes in the world that do this on a regular basis, and they need to be huge - Goldstone (70 m), GBT (100 m), and Arecibo (300 m).
(But again, I don't do this stuff professionally, so I don't really know the exact details...)
posted by RedOrGreen at 6:14 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
(But again, I don't do this stuff professionally, so I don't really know the exact details...)
posted by RedOrGreen at 6:14 PM on May 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Psst. Melancholia was an extended metaphor. Now I've gone and ruined it for you.
Anyway, one of my (very) minor hobbies since the Chelyabinsk event has been watching movies with an eye to how well they depict meteor tracks in the sky. Turns out both Deep Impact and Smilla's Sense of Snow were pretty decent, although I'm not sure I was entirely in agreement with other things such as the blast effect in the latter and Appalachian-height flooding in the former.
posted by dhartung at 2:03 AM on June 1, 2013
Anyway, one of my (very) minor hobbies since the Chelyabinsk event has been watching movies with an eye to how well they depict meteor tracks in the sky. Turns out both Deep Impact and Smilla's Sense of Snow were pretty decent, although I'm not sure I was entirely in agreement with other things such as the blast effect in the latter and Appalachian-height flooding in the former.
posted by dhartung at 2:03 AM on June 1, 2013
Psst. Melancholia was an extended metaphor. Now I've gone and ruined it for you.
I don't like giving spoilers, but I spent that whole movie desperately wishing for all those horrible people to be obliterated.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:58 AM on June 1, 2013
I don't like giving spoilers, but I spent that whole movie desperately wishing for all those horrible people to be obliterated.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:58 AM on June 1, 2013
being absorbed at the target (power received going as R^2) and then re-radiated (spreading out again as R^2 on the way back).
Hm. Now I begin to dimly see that I didn't know what I was talking about. Forgive the incorrection.
posted by stebulus at 9:32 AM on June 1, 2013
Hm. Now I begin to dimly see that I didn't know what I was talking about. Forgive the incorrection.
posted by stebulus at 9:32 AM on June 1, 2013
Solving a 3.5 billion-year-old mystery: Team determines life-producing phosphorus was carried to Earth by meteorite
posted by homunculus at 3:39 PM on June 7, 2013
posted by homunculus at 3:39 PM on June 7, 2013
Stealthy, truck-sized asteroid zipped past Earth on Friday night
posted by homunculus at 5:18 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 5:18 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]
Draft NASA Authorization Bill Nixes Asteroid Retrieval Mission
posted by homunculus at 6:26 PM on June 15, 2013
posted by homunculus at 6:26 PM on June 15, 2013
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posted by Westringia F. at 2:07 PM on May 31, 2013