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Asteroid P/2010 A2: When was the collision?



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 3rd 10, 09:01 AM posted to sci.astro.research
stargene
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Posts: 43
Default Asteroid P/2010 A2: When was the collision?

I just saw today's image of the strange tail of 'asteroid' P/2010 A2
on
the APOD website at
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
If, as many suggest, its unique appearance is the result of a recent
collision between two asteroids (possibly of the Flora family, which
may have spawned the famous asteroid hit at Chicxulub), a good
question is: how recent is recent? The links I've checked do not
discuss this.

Are we talking about years, centuries, millennia? Anybody have a
sense how long it might take before such collisional debris calms
down and loses its tail?
  #2  
Old February 4th 10, 01:50 PM posted to sci.astro.research
Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply][_3_]
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Posts: 137
Default Asteroid P/2010 A2: When was the collision?

stargene wrote:
I just saw today's image of the strange tail of 'asteroid' P/2010 A2
on
the APOD website at
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
If, as many suggest, its unique appearance is the result of a recent
collision between two asteroids (possibly of the Flora family, which
may have spawned the famous asteroid hit at Chicxulub), a good
question is: how recent is recent?


I am not an expert in this area, but I believe the typical timescale
from "collison puts some debris on an Earth-crossing orbit" to
"debris hits Earth" is on the order of a few tens of millions of years.

ciao,

--
-- "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"
Dept of Astronomy, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."
-- quote by Freire / poster by Oxfam
  #3  
Old February 18th 10, 11:15 AM posted to sci.astro.research
Carsten
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Posts: 3
Default Asteroid P/2010 A2: When was the collision?

On 4 Feb., 13:50, "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"
wrote:
stargene wrote:
I just saw today's image of the strange tail of 'asteroid' P/2010 A2
on
the APOD website at
*http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
If, as many suggest, its unique appearance is the result of a recent
collision between two asteroids (possibly of the Flora family, which
may have spawned the famous asteroid hit at Chicxulub), a good
question is: how recent is recent?


The asteroid is in the main belt, perihelion is 2 AU, it never comes
near the Earth.

See http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ find an asteroid, click on link, there
is a search field, enter P/2010 A2

Regards

Carsten Nielsen
Denmark
  #4  
Old February 22nd 10, 12:54 PM posted to sci.astro.research
stargene
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default Asteroid P/2010 A2: When was the collision?

snip

The asteroid is in the main belt, perihelion is 2 AU, it never comes
near the Earth.


snip
Regards

Carsten Nielsen
Denmark


Okay... the emphasis of my original query gradually slid on over into
areas I never intended. It was never my concern that this asteroid (or
its debris) was going to migrate down into near earth orbit and
threaten our already tortured world. I'm aware that the asteroid will
stay in the asteroid belt.

I merely wanted to know, based on standard planetary system physics,
how long has it had its odd tail and knowing that, when was the
hypothetical collision likely to have taken place. That's all. To
restate: given tidal forces, solar wind etc., and other differential
dispersal mechanisms which would gradually dissipate the tail, we
should be able to guess roughly how long ago it got smacked upside its
head. :-) This would help us understand the long term real collisional
processes in the Belt.

cheers,
Gene
  #5  
Old September 19th 11, 01:30 PM
cropcircle cropcircle is offline
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First recorded activity by SpaceBanter: Sep 2011
Posts: 1
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carsten View Post
On 4 Feb., 13:50, "Jonathan Thornburg [remove -animal to reply]"
wrote:
stargene wrote:
I just saw today's image of the strange tail of 'asteroid' P/2010 A2
on
the APOD website at
*http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
If, as many suggest, its unique appearance is the result of a recent
collision between two asteroids (possibly of the Flora family, which
may have spawned the famous asteroid hit at Chicxulub), a good
question is: how recent is recent?


The asteroid is in the main belt, perihelion is 2 AU, it never comes
near the Earth.

See http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/ find an asteroid, click on link, there
is a search field, enter P/2010 A2

Regards

Carsten Nielsen
Denmark


Dear friends,

I wonder: if P/2010 A2 belongs to the Flora family, like the other that seems to have killed the dinosaurs, are we sure that the story couldn't be repeated?
Sorry for my bad english, I'm italian. In an important tv program someone told that P/2010 A2 is approachig to our planet? maybe they wanted only terrorize us?

Massimo

Last edited by cropcircle : September 19th 11 at 01:37 PM.
 




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