On Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 12:48 GMT, a newly discovered asteroid with temporary designation 2010 AL30 will fly by the Earth at the distance of 0.000 86 AU (129,060 km; about 33% of the distance to the Moon). The asteroid has a diameter of approximately 10-25 meters and poses no risk to anyone, as not only is the calculated perigee distance quite accurate, but in a case of the encounter with Earth’s atmosphere, it would certainly break up and rain down only a few small fragments (meteorites).
At around 10 UT on January 13, the object could reach a maximum brightness of 13.8 magnitude and despite a large relative motion (about 10 arcsec/second) should be easily observable with a medium size equipment.
Orbit Diagram of 2010 AL 30 - Source: NASA JPL
2010 AL30 will also have closer encounters with our Moon (January 14, 2010 at 0.001 86 AU), Mars (July 24, 2039 at 0.089 6 AU) and several close encounters with Venus (May 16, 2012, August 2, 2016, January 5, 2037, etc.)
This image below is a 4 frame animation of the asteroid 3200 Phaethon by Charles Bell (MPC Code H47). Phaethon is an Apollo Asteroid discovered on October 11, 1983 by Simon Green and John K. Davies examining the data from Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). Phaethon became the first asteroid discovered by a spacecraft.
4 frame animation of 3200 Phaethon (the moving dot to the left of the cross) - Credit: Charles Bell (MPC Code H47)
One of Phaethon’s most remarkable distinctions is that it approaches the Sun closer than any other numbered asteroid; its perihelion is only 0.140 AU — less than half Mercury’s perihelion distance. It is a Mercury-, Venus-, Earth- and Mars-crosser.
Phaethon could be characterized as a comet, except it has been observed exhibiting a coma or tail. Soon after the discovery, Fred Whipple’s observation matched Phaethon’s orbital elements with the mean orbital elements of 19 Geminid meteors. Phaethon thus turned out to be the long-sought parent body of the Geminids meteor shower of mid-December
Unusual orbit of 3200 Phaethon takes it out into the main asteroid belt beyond Mars, and very near to the scorching Sun inside of Mercury's orbit.
Update 4: Below is a spectacular shot of the meteor captured by Robert Mikaelyan
Fireball Meteor Over Groningen captured around 17:00UTC on Tuesday Netherlands - Source: Robert Mikaelyan
Update 3: Koen Miskotte estimated the meteor’s brightness between -8 and -12. According to his report the red orange fireball broke up in 5/6 pieces each one with a magnitude of -3 to -5. There are also reports of a sonic boom and a rumbling sound and shaking windows.
Update 2: Pictures of the smoke trail left by the bolide at dusk have appeared in a forum.
People in the Netherlands and Germany are reporting an extremely bright fireball seen around 19.00 CEST (17:00 UTC), traveling more or less south-north. Daniel Fisher of the Nuremberg Astronomical Associationposted a photo of the meteor Daniel Fischer twittered links to a report posted on a mailing-list run by the Nuremberg Astronomical Association as well as to a a photo of the meteor:
A bright fireball seen over the Netherlands and Germany on October 13, 2009 at 16:58:24 UTC - Source: Jan de Vries
Theo Jurriens from the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute of University of Groningen, and KNMI – the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, confirmed about one hundred reports received from the public. The meteor has been seen to burst into three pieces eventually.
Last night, fans at the Beach Bums game in Traverse City in Michigan reported seeing a bright meteor in the night sky.
“We were watching the game and then all of a sudden something caught our eyes.”
“We looked up really quick and there was this big, bright fireball… it seemed like it was right on top of us like you almost had to duck it seemed so low.”
There are also reports of a loud explosion, thus the object must have reached low enough altitudes where the air thickens enough that sound can propagate through it.
We thought someone set off dynamite – the boom shook the house.
This sighting adds to the series of bright meteors seen around the world recently. The number of similar reports in the last year should really be attributed to the rise of social media rather than increasing number of meteor activity. About 3,000 meteors are set ablaze in our atmosphere every day.
The space around us is filled with interplanetary debris. As of August 30, 2009, 6292 Near-Earth Objects (NEO) have been discovered. 1062 of these NEOs are asteroids with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometer or larger. Also, 145 of these NEOs have been classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).
Only yesterday, at 11:46:36 UTC the asteroid labeled as 2009 QC35, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on August 29, passed the Earth at a distance of about 0.0075 AU which roughly represents 2.9 Lunar Distances (LD). The separation of 1,113,500 km is considered quite close by space standards.
Orbit Diagram of 2009 QC35 - Source: NASA JPL
2009 QC35 has an estimated diameter of 23-52m. It is not one of the largest among Apollo asteroids (Earth-crossing NEOs with semi-major axis greater than 1.0 AU and perihelion distance less than 1.017 AU), nevertheless a collision with our planet would cause a great damage and leave a long lasting scar.
The Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona created approximately 49,000 years ago by a nickel-iron meteorite with the diameter of about 50 meters
Today at 23:58 UT asteroid labeled as 2009 FP will pass the Earth at a distance of about 0.003 AU which roughly represents 1.2 Lunar Distances (LD). The comfortable separation of 445,000 km is not a “hair” per se, nevertheless it is quite close by space standards.
Orbit Diagram of 2009 FP - Source: NASA JPL
This Near Earth Object (NEO) was discovered at 05:46 UT on March 29 by Mount Lemmon Survey (MLS) in Arizona, one of the three facilities of the Catalina Sky Survey. The probability of impacting the Earth is only 1 in 133,000. The asteroid has a diameter of approximately 10 meters and poses no risk to anyone as it would certainly break up in the Earth’s atmosphere and rain down only a few small fragments (meteorites).
Astronomers have been conducting surveys to locate objects whose orbits bring them to close proximity with the Earth for decades. However, automatization techniques first introduced by LINEAR program greatly increased the numbers of discovered asteroid in the last ten year. LINEAR alone is responsible for the discovery of more than 220,000 new objects out of which more than 2,000 classify and NEO’s (NEO is a Solar System object with perihelion distance less than 1.3 AU).
NEO Chart - Source: NASA JPL
It might seem that Earth’s neighborhood got filled fill space junk suddenly as news of fireballs have filled internet blogs and even TV news over the past 6 months. Fortunately, it is far more likely that general public and media simply pay more attention to these events. Additionally, astronomers are becoming better at detecting even the smallest objects days before they pass the Perigee of their orbits. Bad Astronomer offers a great explanation for this “puzzling” phenomenon:
I think it’s a mix of coincidence — there may be a few more than usual, but it’s not like these things have published schedules; sometimes there are more and sometimes fewer — together with people being more aware of them because they’ve been in the news lately. It’s like buying a car and suddenly seeing it everywhere when you drive. We notice what we’re primed to notice.
Below is a short list of notable objects that crossed path with Earth in the past six month:
On October 6, 2008 Richard A. Kowalski of the Catalina Sky Survey discovered a meteoroid, later labeled as 2008 TC3, that entered Earth’s atmosphere only 20 hours later, at 02:46 UT on October 7, 2008 over Sudan. There was great excitement in NEO community as it was the first time a prediction was issued about an object entering Earth’s atmosphere. Consequent observations led to discovery of several fragments of the original piece of rock that measured about 5 meters in diameter. Here is an animation of what an observer on the asteroid would see in the last hours before the atmospheric entry.
A very bright fireball lit up the skies in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada around 22:30 UT on Thursday, November 20, 2008.
Only two months later this footage from Sweden captures a spectacular meteor that entered Earth’s atmosphere on January 17, 2009.
It is quite rare to see a meteor during daylight as most meteors are too faint to be noticed. One of the exceptions is the great fireball of 1972 which was the first Earth-grazing object ever observed.
Earth-grazing fireballs are caused by a meteoroid that enters the atmosphere but overcomes the Earth’s gravity and exists back into outer space. Only four grazers have been scientifically observed.
A very bright daylight meteor was seen over Texas on February 15, 2009. Only a few days later, two astronomers claimed to have found meteorite debris.
On March 2, 2008 at 13:45UT we had the first close miss of March when Asteroid 2009 DD45, discovered only a few days before, reached the perigee distance of 72,000 km.
Orbit Diagram of 2009 DD45 - Source: NASA JPL
Two weeks later, on March 18 at 12:17 UT another interplanetary rock 15 meters across, 2009 FH, flew by reaching minimal geocentric distance of 79,000 km. Both of these objects passed us at only twice the altitude of geostationary satellites.
Orbit Diagram of 2009 FH - Source: NASA JPL
If this feels like the Universe is out there to get us … well … that’s right. We know with 100% certainty that it will eventually succeed.
