Two Asteroids Pass close to Earth Today

[jogjeff]

Apparently two asteroids came very close to earth today. Astronomers didn't even see them until this past sunday. One of the asteroids came within .2 lunar orbits of the earth. These asteroids weren't miles wide, but still big enough to have done some damage to where it would have impacted earth if they were to. The scary thing is that no one really saw them coming. . .

from nasa
Two Asteroids to Pass by Earth Wednesday09.07.10  Top view: Two small asteroids in unrelated orbits will pass within the moon's distance of Earth on Wed. Both should be observable with moderate-sized amateur telescopes. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Both asteroids should be observable near closest approach to Earth with moderate-sized amateur telescopes. Neither of these objects has a chance of hitting Earth. A 10-meter-sized near-Earth asteroid from the undiscovered population of about 50 million would be expected to pass almost daily within a lunar distance, and one might strike Earth's atmosphere about every 10 years on average.

The Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Ariz., discovered both objects on the morning of Sunday, Sept. 5, during a routine monitoring of the skies. The Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., first received the observations Sunday morning, determined preliminary orbits and concluded that both objects would pass within the distance of the moon about three days after their discovery.

Near-Earth asteroid 2010 RX30 is estimated to be 32 to 65 feet (10 to 20 meters) in size and will pass within 0.6 lunar distances of Earth (about 154,000 miles, or 248,000 kilometers) at 2:51 a.m. PDT (5:51 a.m. EDT) Wednesday. The second object, 2010 RF12, estimated to be 20 to 46 feet (6 to 14 meters) in size, will pass within 0.2 lunar distances (about 49,088 miles or 79,000 kilometers) a few hours later at 2:12 p.m. PDT (5:12 pm EDT).

More information about asteroids is available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/ . You can also follow the latest news about asteroids on Twitter at @asteroidwatch .

[Syn]

Interesting find Jeff. What is confusing is that NASA didn't even detect it which leads me to wonder is these were somehow undetecable by radar or something.

[[NACHE]WOOOOOOOOO]

I think if they were big enough to really be a threat then the radars would definatly have picked them up.