NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded • Hacker News Board

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#41

Post by flandish » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:08 PM UTC

throwaway4aday wrote: post #26

flandish wrote: post #4

> The asteroid was discovered by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, discoverer of the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov, from his MARGO observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea, on Saturday, Jan. 21. Discovered 5 days before its closest approach. It’s amazing how much “stuff” is out there to learn, and how something can sneak in so “close”.

Imagine standing in a field on a moonless night while someone shines a flashlight at you from one direction. You are told you are surrounded by a number of people whom you can't see and that they will now proceed to throw rocks at you ranging in size from pebbles to bricks. That's roughly the level of anxiety you should have about our current situation.

Oh for sure. No anxiety at all. Just so NEAT that there is so much out there.

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#42

Post by flandish » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:09 PM UTC

TheCapn wrote: post #36

jeffbee wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't they be throwing the rocks at the flashlight guy?

Well, to make the analogy work you'd be running circles around flashlight guy while they throw at him. Maybe you're in the crossfire, maybe not. But the other part that I think the original OP is sort of amazed at is that we're unable to detect these through some sort of automated system more accurately. It isn't fair to compare our space/vision capabilities to the eyesight of a person alone. Do we not have satellite…

I (op) was just amazed at how much is out there, how this shows what we have yet to even know, let alone “look out for” etc. Was a comment on scale nothing else.

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#43

Post by BitwiseFool » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:12 PM UTC

guerrilla wrote: post #18

moonchrome wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamblers fallacy is about independent probably - there are cyclical natural catastrophes.

> there are cyclical natural catastrophes That sounds very made up.

The nature of orbits makes the "cyclical" aspect seem reasonable to me. Especially in light of how many objects there are that have extremely elliptical orbits which dip into the inner solar system and out to the Kuiper belt. Or, objects that end up in a resonance that seems stable enough but are modeled to eventually be perturbed into a new orbit.

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#44

Post by Nifty3929 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:13 PM UTC

I think it's unfortunate that our government (in the US) is spending trillions left and right, but won't spend a few Billion to address genuine existential threats such as early detection of asteroids.

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#45

Post by lgl » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #37

lgl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we know for a fact that every once in a while, we get hit by an asteroid (which is exactly what this is about). I'd call that cyclical and not made up.

Everyone once in a while the roulette ball lands on green and I get a big payout. That's not a cyclical event.

Only because you don't have the money or time to keep playing. But continue playing for 1 million years, and the black and red will hit a similar number of times and the green a proportionally lower number of times.

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#46

Post by ge96 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #33

Notice that this was spotted by an amateur only 2 weeks before closest approach. Why was it not found by the larger installations? One problem I like to repeat at times like this, is that these hunts for near earth asteroids look for bright spots that move against the background stars. That's a nice way to find things nearby. But any object on a collision course with earth will not be moving against the background in…

how far away would you need them to be to detect/be able to respond

you could put LIGO-type "stationary" satellites around Earth to detect heavy things moving

in boxed grids then estimate trajectory over the affected cubes

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#47

Post by sand500 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #33

Notice that this was spotted by an amateur only 2 weeks before closest approach. Why was it not found by the larger installations? One problem I like to repeat at times like this, is that these hunts for near earth asteroids look for bright spots that move against the background stars. That's a nice way to find things nearby. But any object on a collision course with earth will not be moving against the background in…

Is there no parallax as the Earth moves around the Sun? Are these asteroids in some crazy hyperbolic orbit coming in straight from outside the solar system?

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#48

Post by dmoy » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

boringg wrote: post #19

EForEndeavour wrote: post #3

The article includes an inline embedded version of Eyes on Asteroids ( https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/asteroids/#/asteroids ), which is an amazingly impressive interactive live visualization of asteroids in the solar system. Dragging the time slider at the bottom lets you wind time backward and forward and watch the power-law relationship between orbital speed and radius (v ~ 1/sqrt(r)) in glorious fluid animation of cou…

Eros in June 2028 looks pretty close to earth.

The one in the article is gonna be <5,000km away. Eros is always like at least 15,000,000km+ away, at its closest. Something like that.

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#49

Post by UI_at_80x24 » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

When I was about 10 years old 1983 (+/- 2 years) I was 'camping' in my backyard with a friend. While we were running around in the dark we saw an asteroid bounce off the atmosphere and either enter below my visual horizon or pass by the earth.

It was about the size golfball/chicken egg held at arms length. I was facing East-South-East (approximately).

It was a bright red, and I could see impact craters on the surface of it. There were no 'flames/fireballs' from orbital entry friction.

The entire incident lasted less then 10 seconds (but this is very much a guess, and impacted by the time-frames involved).

Re: NASA predicts asteroid to make one of closest approaches to Earth ever recorded

#50

Post by bgirard » Thu, Jan 26, 2023, 4:42 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #33

Notice that this was spotted by an amateur only 2 weeks before closest approach. Why was it not found by the larger installations? One problem I like to repeat at times like this, is that these hunts for near earth asteroids look for bright spots that move against the background stars. That's a nice way to find things nearby. But any object on a collision course with earth will not be moving against the background in…

But with computers and sky tracking charts shouldn't it be trivial to find new spots in the sky without using parallax? Anything new should be pretty note worthy.