Record-setting "near miss" of Earth dramatically shifted tiny asteroid'sorbit

Record-setting "near miss" of Earth dramatically shifted tiny asteroid's
orbit
http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...SA_DD_20110211

"But sky monitors did spot one small asteroid, called 2011 CQ1, less
than a day before it buzzed Earth at the smallest distance ever
recorded. On February 4, the meter-size rock flew over the Pacific at an
altitude of about 5,500 kilometers—about one-seventieth the distance
between Earth and the moon and well below the orbit of some high-flying
satellites.

"But even though 2011 CQ1 skirted immolation in Earth's atmosphere, it
did not escape from the encounter unmolested. Earth's gravity gave the
asteroid a good tweak, redirecting its trajectory by about 60 degrees in
much the same way that interplanetary spacecraft use the gravity of the
planets for course corrections or speed adjustments. "Prior to the Earth
close approach, this object was in a so-called Apollo-class orbit that
was mostly outside the Earth's orbit," asteroid trackers Don Yeomans and
Paul Chodas wrote on the NASA Near-Earth Object Program Web site.
"Following the close approach, the Earth's gravitational attraction
modified the object's orbit to an Aten-class orbit where the asteroid
spends almost all of its time inside the Earth's orbit".

On Feb 11, 1:43*pm, Sam Wormley wrote:

"Following the close approach, the Earth's gravitational attraction
modified the object's orbit to an Aten-class orbit where the asteroid
spends almost all of its time inside the Earth's orbit".

What? The orbit of a heavenly body being altered by... this "gravity"
thing of the empiricist Newton?

References to A Midsummer Night's Dream aside, I hope they're working
on a precise orbit determination of the object's new orbit, so we will
be prepared should its orbit again bring it close to Earth.

So that we might impiously presume to push it out of the way and
escape our fate if we have to.

John Savard

On 2/11/11 5:29 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
On Feb 11, 1:43 pm, Sam wrote:

"Following the close approach, the Earth's gravitational attraction
modified the object's orbit to an Aten-class orbit where the asteroid
spends almost all of its time inside the Earth's orbit".

What? The orbit of a heavenly body being altered by... this "gravity"
thing of the empiricist Newton?

References to A Midsummer Night's Dream aside, I hope they're working
on a precise orbit determination of the object's new orbit, so we will
be prepared should its orbit again bring it close to Earth.

So that we might impiously presume to push it out of the way and
escape our fate if we have to.

John Savard

smiling

Sam Wormley wrote:

Record-setting "near miss" of Earth dramatically shifted tiny asteroid's
orbit
http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...SA_DD_20110211

"But sky monitors did spot one small asteroid, called 2011 CQ1, less
than a day before it buzzed Earth at the smallest distance ever
recorded. On February 4, the meter-size rock flew over the Pacific at an
altitude of about 5,500 kilometers—about one-seventieth the distance
between Earth and the moon and well below the orbit of some high-flying
satellites.

"But even though 2011 CQ1 skirted immolation in Earth's atmosphere, it
did not escape from the encounter unmolested. Earth's gravity gave the
asteroid a good tweak, redirecting its trajectory by about 60 degrees in
much the same way that interplanetary spacecraft use the gravity of the
planets for course corrections or speed adjustments. "Prior to the Earth
close approach, this object was in a so-called Apollo-class orbit that
was mostly outside the Earth's orbit," asteroid trackers Don Yeomans and
Paul Chodas wrote on the NASA Near-Earth Object Program Web site.
"Following the close approach, the Earth's gravitational attraction
modified the object's orbit to an Aten-class orbit where the asteroid
spends almost all of its time inside the Earth's orbit".

Something tells me you wont be satisfied until one hits!

How do you plan to communicate with everyone to run the world after that?
Who will be in charge? What religion must we practice? What fee must we pay
and to who?

On Feb 11, 6:21*pm, Sam Wormley wrote:

Looking at the news report, though, I see that the body in question
was about a meter in diameter. So it is not a dinosaur killer, or even
a Tunguska type body. Instead, perhaps it should have been described
as a meteoroid rather than an asteroid - and a collision would simply
have been a routine meteorite impact, leaving only tiny fragments to
reach the ground.

If something on the order of a kilometer across missed Earth so
narrowly, then it's worrying that such a near-miss happened.

Ah: definitions of a meteoroid range from 10m to 50m as the upper
threshhold. And apparently about 37 meteoroids of diameter 1 meter or
greater hit the Earth in the average year.

Ah, well. Either "meter-size rock" is a misprint, or they're getting
good at detecting stuff.

John Savard

On Feb 12, 1:21*am, Sam Wormley wrote:
On 2/11/11 5:29 PM, Quadibloc wrote:









On Feb 11, 1:43 pm, Sam *wrote:

"Following the close approach, the Earth's gravitational attraction
modified the object's orbit to an Aten-class orbit where the asteroid
spends almost all of its time inside the Earth's orbit".

What? The orbit of a heavenly body being altered by... this "gravity"
thing of the empiricist Newton?

References to A Midsummer Night's Dream aside, I hope they're working
on a precise orbit determination of the object's new orbit, so we will
be prepared should its orbit again bring it close to Earth.

So that we might impiously presume to push it out of the way and
escape our fate if we have to.

John Savard

* *smiling

You disgrace yourself Sam by associating with these creatures who
traffic in science fiction.

The mid-summer definition is appropriate for applying to the so-called
'planet' definition as no astronomer would have found it necessary to
attempt to alter something which defines itself,not by composition or
geology or size,but by its 'wandering' dynamics.An astronomer gets a
feel for the topic and moves with it and I have been surprised that a
few readers have found themselves rightly uncomfortable with that
nonsense about Pluto.There is no need to 'define' the period of summer
astronomically as the term represents an orbital point in the Earth's
orbit and therefore cannot be explained using an axial coordinate and
variations in inclination of that coordinate.

You see how simple things can become rapidly complex in a very short
space of time or something which is complicated can be reduced to
simplicity as long as the reader includes information rather than
rejects it,something which has happened in explaining the orbital
daylight/darkness cycle,its links to the seasons and the variations in
the natural noon cycle.Astronomy is the most visual of all sciences
and it thrives on what we can see and experience despite 3 centuries
of attempting to make people believe the contrary.

You were not smiling Sam,you were wearing the grin of deceit yet
things are evolving and the chances are that the appeal of imaging
tangible celestial objects and their motions will prove too much for
intelligent people to ignore as only a certain personality can live
with falsehood for any length of time.

On 12 Feb., 10:54, kelleher mumbled through his alco-chemiholic daze:

only a certain personality can live
with falsehood for any length of time.

An open admission of guilt, as charged?

On Feb 12, 2:54*am, oriel36 wrote:

You disgrace yourself Sam by associating with these creatures who
traffic in science fiction.

This conjures up visions of wretched creatures in back alleys, seeking
some way to inject more Star Trek into their veins... but the visions
do not last long, being manifestly inconsistent with reality.

John Savard