Astronomers around the world have readied their telescopes to catch a glimpse of a speeding ball of rock that will hurtle past the Earth tonight.
Scientists say the asteroid, which is just under a half a kilometer wide, will pass inside the moon’s orbit and come within 319,000km of Earth at 11:28pm GMT. This is the closest a tracked object this size has come to the planet.
NASA calculates the 400m wide asteroid, known as 2005 YU55, has roughly a one in 10 million chance of hitting Earth in the next century.
Were it to strike, the collision would unleash the equivalent of several thousand megatonnes of TNT.
Even with clear skies, the asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye, but astronomers will turn their telescopes on the rock to learn about its surface and chemical composition.
“Most of the asteroids we see are so far out that we only get a small amount of information from the light reflected off them,” said Kevin Yates, at the Near Earth Objects Information Centre at the National Space Centre in Leicester, England.
“Because this one is coming in so close, we’ll be able to get more radar observations, which will give us a detailed surface map, and be able to get more of a chemical signature on the minerals,” Yates said.
The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico last year revealed the asteroid to be remarkably spherical, while its surface is very dark, suggesting it is rich in carbon.
A similar flyby will not happen until 2028, when asteroid 2001 WN5 swings past the Earth at a distance of 229,000km.
“We are finding a whole variety of unusual shapes out there and this asteroid is particularly spherical. If we can characterize them more and understand them more, then if we ever do have a threat from one, understanding the structure and the materials they’re made from would better equip us to divert one. It may be that there are materials on board that could be used as a fuel to drive an engine that would push it into a different orbit over 20 years,” Yates added.
The asteroid is among the most ancient objects in the solar system, having formed from the dust and gas disc that surrounded the sun 4.5 billion years ago.
Though born in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the rock was pulled by gravity or nudged by collisions on to its new orbital course.
“These are the building blocks left over from when the solar system formed and this particular carbonaceous asteroid is one of the most primitive types,” Yates said.
“Understanding its chemical composition is like looking into the ingredients book to see how it was put together,” Yates said.
The asteroid will pass close to Venus in 2029, which will disturb its orbit to mean its next passage past Earth, in 2041, could be between 317,000km and nearly 50 million kilometers from the planet. Its close encounter after that will be with Mars in 2072.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
RSS