Still cool, though.
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/51000/5196...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Speed_of_...
PS will it be visible to naked eye? if yes then when and where and for how long and where in the sky? can there be a real time Google earth 3d simulation like NASA did for space shuttle launch?
Quick OOM calc: This thing has an area proportional to the moon of (200m/1700km)^2. The moon has an albedo of ~0.12. An object with albedo 1 would thus have a brightness of ~1e-7 of the Moon's. The full Moon has a magnitude of -12.7, so such an object would have a magnitude of -12.7-2.5log10(1e-7), or about 4.8. That's clearly visible to the naked eye at a dark site, but not very impressive.
EDIT: in case you couldn't fathom, that was sarcasm.
EDIT 2: seriously, stop it! or reply as to why are you down voting? is it a crime to mistakenly post a comment and then acknowledge your mistake or are you guys just some proud 'elite' HNers?
If you find yourself editing your post asking people not to downvote, it's time to delete it.
Source: http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php (scroll to the bottom for Earth approaching objects)
Wouldn't flooding the market with that much gold...crash it? Are we really talking about that many billions and billions of dollars worth of potential revenue from mining an asteroid?
This all just seems like fun sci-fantasy.
Well, presumably only a single party is going to recover that gold. If they dumped the whole load onto the market, it would crash. But if they release it slowly, then a greater supply from each batch would cause "inflation", so that the price they could get from the next batch would be lower. But they could still derive significant wealth before trailed off.
Instead consider a big hunk of asteroid mined gold sitting in orbit. Free storage, and quick delivery to anywhere in the world. Park it up there and drop pieces of it when the prices are high enough.
Meaning: stand on a point of the Earth such that the moon is situated exactly above the opposite side of the Earth. Then look up. All that stuff you see is closer to the Earth than the moon.
The moon doesn't stop being closer to the earth simply because you can't see it from a particular point on the Earth.
About the only thing you can say is that if you were to proceed outward on a linear path from the opposite side of the Earth from that which the moon is currently positioned, then you would reach something other than the moon sooner than you would reach the moon.
But that would be saying nothing, really.
You're not related to the Ravenous Bug Blatter Beast of Traal by any chance are you?
[The radar imaging] reveals 2005 YU55 as a spherical object about 400 meters (1,300 feet) in size.
Not only can the radar provide data on an asteroid's dimensions, but also on its exact location in space. Using Arecibo's high-precision radar astrometry capability, scientists were able to reduce orbit uncertainties for YU55 by 50 percent.
"At one time we had classified 2005 YU55 as a potential threat," said Steve Chesley, a scientist at JPL's Near-Earth Object Program Office. "Prior to the Arecibo radar passes on April 19 thru 21 [2010], we had eliminated almost all upcoming Earth flybys as possibilities of impact. But there were a few that had a low remaining probability of impact. After incorporating the data from Arecibo, we were able to rule impacts out entirely for the next 100 years."
*
So, they do know this one will be well-behaved for 100 years.
EDIT: although from the gif it appears that it was a close call on the moon. But i close my eyes and i see a world where i get out and see a small piece of rock hit our moon with a decent explosion when the moon is full. Man if it does't affect out planet in any way, i would really like to see that happen. Gives me goosebumps every time i visualize it! amazing..
n-body dynamics is a complicated, chaotic system. Getting any precision at all over any reasonable period of time is a feat of itself.
well i don't want to get upvotes but if you disagree with me then please take some more time to write a quick comment as to why.
Well i posted asking if it will be visible to naked eye, someone quoted a part of the story (indirectly) saying that it won't be and i happened to have missed that part, and i get down voted (for missing reading a part of the story).. well then i acknowledge that i missed it and i get down voted still even then i asked the down voter why was he is down voting my comments and guess what.. i got down voted.. again. but no one has balls to write back, or maybe they are super busy with their work but anyways, and i wont edit this comment but i can say two things:
- you (or any of the downvoters) probably won't reply to this comment either. - this comment will (almost certainly) be down voted too.
lets see how correct i am..
If all the objects in the solar system were in exactly the same plane we'd have a solar eclipse every month. The moon's orbit, for instance, is inclined at five degrees to the ecliptic.
The moon has a mass of 7.349×10²² kg. Its mean orbital velocity is 1023m/s. So, with a perfectly-aligned impact, and perfect efficiency, to add velocity, you'd need to add energy equal to difference in kinetic energy. For 1m/s, that'd be 10²⁵J (assuming the change in mass is negligible). That's an incredible amount of energy, about 20 times greater than the Chicxulub impact (believed to have triggered the mass extinctions at the K-T boundary).
That's 1 m/s. You need far more than that. Earth escape velocity is 11200m/s. So, that would seem to need 10³⁰ J. And an impact would deliver that in well under a minute. Which would be a problem, since that's an order of magnitude greater than the gravitational binding energy of the moon.
Conclusion: impact required would fully obliterate moon.
(Moon mass and velocity, and escape velocity from http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html. Gravitational binding energy and estimate of Chicxulub from Wolfram Alpha)
PS if moon gets a major hit, its highly unlikely earth stays 'physically' unaffected. The aftermath of the collision would leave numerous chunks of huge rocks in earth's near space and it would be almost certain that some of then then hit earth. And the effect of decent sized rock hitting the planet is better known to our long lost friends, the dinosaurs :)
But would the nights be totally dark? I've experienced a lot of nights out on a boat on a moonless night and the stars provide a (relatively) large amount of light on their own.
As for who gets hit; Earth's mass is 81 times that of the Moon so it attracts objects 81 times as strongly. Really, the Moon would only get hit if Earth already pulled an object into a collision course or near-miss and the Moon just happened to get in the way at the right time. Earth has 4x the diameter so presents 16x the cross-sectional target that the Moon does.
Relax, it's only HN. Go build something instead.
My first ever comment in this thread was a legit question only that it's answer was already hidden in the parent article. I guess that didn't "add to discussion" then.
In short newbies cannot learn about the 'ways' of HN without being looked down upon (which is always so great for the morale). interesting. I hope my comment 'adds to the discussion' of the condition of 'ways' of HN :)
PS thanks for replying! i was kind of confused :D
Getting downvoted is one way that newbies learn about HN; most of the time, the downvote comes with a discussion.
(One last note: sarcasm is really hard to detect in writing; we miss the tone of voice and all the nonverbal cues. It's polite to mark a sarcastic response with something that shows you're being sarcastic. Don't count on just the content of your post to show sarcasm.)