Saturday, June 25, 2011

Close Call Coming!

Hey Space Placers!

We will have a CLOSE flyby of an asteroid discovered just this past Wednesday, on June 27th at about 1 pm EDT. As stated in the following Sky and Telescope article, "Asteroid 2011 MD, a chunk of rock estimated to be 25 to 55 feet (8 to 18 m) across, is expected to pass less than 8,000 miles above Earth's surface."

While that IS close, we have had "close encounters of the closest kind" - an impact of a newly discovered asteroid. That happened in 2008 and was the first time in history that a discovered asteroid went on to hit Earth. Meteorites were recovered from that event as well.

Once again we are reminded of the real threat that asteroids pose to our planet. While this space rock was spotted and determined to pose no threat to us this time around as well as 2022, there are literally thousands of unknown space rocks out there that might pose a threat.

Fortunately this rock is small enough that it would PROBABLY break up in our atmosphere and PERHAPS produce meteorites.

Read More About It:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/124430479.html

Sky Guy in VA

Tomorrow: Surf's Up!

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