Close Asteroid Pass on Nov. 8th. Feel the Breeze!

Asteroid 2005 YU 55 and the Earth-Moon System, November 8, 2011

An exciting event takes place at 6:28 p.m. EST this evening when a 400-meter long asteroid passes within 202,000 miles of Earth. This distance is about 85% of the 238,000-mile distance between Earth and the moon. While it might be a cause of concern for some, astronomers agree that the object will not come any closer to Earth and have eliminated the possibility that Earth will be struck by 2005 YU 55.

The actual trajectory of the asteroid shows it traveling from the general direction of the sun toward the Earth-Moon system, but tangent to the moon’s orbital path just inside the moon’s orbit. The moon will be almost 90 degrees from the asteroid and moving away at the time YU 55 passes and, most important, the asteroid will pass well above the orbital plane of both the Earth and the moon.

Covering nearly nine degrees of sky per hour as it passes, YU 55, comes at us from the direction of the sun and passes on out beyond us, anti-sunward toward the outer solar system. As we would see it (if we could), it will travel from west to east across the evening sky as it heads out into the deep solar system. Its orbit actually brings it around this region every 15 months or so, but current studies of its orbital path indicate no impact encounters for us over the next several hundred years.

Due to the timing of its passage, only viewers in western Europe and eastern North America have the best chance to see it.

Because of its small size and low brightness (far below naked-eye visibility), it will be difficult to see with anything less than a 6-inch telescope under dark skies. Even then, you’ll have to know exactly where to look and even if you have some skill as an observer, you may miss it.

Asteroid 2005 YU 55 was identified six years ago. When its orbit was calculated by astronomers, it was determined that YU 55 had passed even closer to earth in 1976 but at that time was unknown to exist. Since its discovery, radar measurements taken during its 2010 pass indicate its size to be rather small as asteroids go - more like a large rock rather than a ‘monster’ asteroid. During this pass scientists will examine it more closely and with better instrumentation, hoping to image finer details of the surface that may shed light on its origin.

For more information, check out the diagrams found here:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/133013563.html

- Derrick Pitts, Chief Astronomer, Franklin Institute Science Museum, dpitts@fi.edu, 215 448 1234.

New Manned Capsule Shows the Way of the Future

This week NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden announced that the nation’s space agency now plans to develop a manned spacecraft to carry astronauts up to earth orbit. Lockheed Martin has been busy at work developing a new capsule at NASA’s direction for several years. Bolden’s announcement of a new capsule will build on LockMart’s current work.

The capsule will be part of a launch system that will include a new launch vehicle currently under development. The launch vehicle’s design essentially will return to the pre-space shuttle configuration used during the Apollo era and known as the ‘big, dumb, booster’. Technologically simple, reliable and cheap, BDB’s are a technology that is and has been employed by space farers since the Chinese first invented gunpowder.  The new rocket booster is scheduled for completion in 2016. The announcement comes as the space shuttle program comes to a close with the final mission now scheduled for launch in early July.

In the same announcement, Bolden also stated that the capsule will be a significant part of NASA’s plan to concentrate on the big exploration challenges such as manned missions to an asteroid, the moon and eventually to Mars by the 2030's, while the more routine tasks such as ferrying cargo and astronauts to low earth orbit will be outsourced to the expanding compliment of commercial space service providers.

Bolden’s announcements underscore the changes underway in what should be regarded as the evolution of America’s space program, rather than the end or the ‘winding down’ of our program. If you take into account that we have been using the chemical rockets for more than 60 years to lift payloads and people to orbit and non-governmental space service contractors have adopted those same systems to launch payloads for profit for about 20 years, it makes sense that a large bureaucratic agency like NASA would consider outsourcing such a basic operation in an effort to cut its overhead and focus its attention and expertise on the bigger endeavors like manned interplanetary travel and exploration. When you think about it, outsourcing is what every major (and many minor corporations) have done to cut operational costs over the past decade.

So when you go out to see Space Station and Space Shuttle fly over your area during these last two missions of the shuttle program, don’t despair that our space program is coming to a close, it isn’t. It’s just evolving – like every other endeavor has had to do to remain current, vital, productive, innovative, and relevant. Why would we want a space program mired in past achievements and technologies anyway? Remember – evolution is good for technology also. After all, would you rather stay with a typewriter forever or move on to a laptop? I know what my answer is……what's yours?

Doomsday May 2011: From My Point of View

All last week I listened to the news stories about Harold Camping’s prediction that the world would end on Saturday, May 21st. I’m posting this on May 24th.  I almost feel like nothing more need be said. But I’m compelled to say more.

First, after 200,000 years of human existence on this planet, during which so many thousands of people have declared the end to be near, why would so many people today blindly believe Mr. Camping so completely as to divest themselves of all they would need to live should the world not end as he predicted? Didn’t we see this before when Jim Jones led so many to drink the poison Kool-Aid in Guyana? Isn’t this what happened when 39 Heaven’s Gate cult members ate poison applesauce so their souls could hitch a ride on an alien spacecraft concealed in the dust tail of Comet Hale-Bopp? After so many so-called ‘prophets’ have come and gone, how is it that Mr. Camping would be the one with the real truth? How is it that he could figure out a secret of God that has eluded thousands of holy men since the Bible was written? He’d already made an incorrect prediction of doomsday years ago. Wouldn’t that have been a hint that he’s not the guy? After all, predicting the end of the world is a pretty big thing. Shouldn’t he have started out with smaller predictions, working his way up to the big one? Even Moses demonstrated where he was coming from before he smote the Egyptians. Just to ‘pile on’, I would’ve expected that the word might instead have come from someone with a bit more humility, a little less entrepreneurial in the name of faith and, frankly, a little less crazy looking.

If it seems as if I’m full of rhetorical questions about this, it’s because there are so many simple questions to be asked that would completely derail anyone’s belief that Camping’s prediction had the least chance of being possible. I’m dismayed that people can be so misguided in their faith that they are willing to forgo the protection and well-being of their families. If the end were to come in the manner Camping described, the preparatory disposition of material goods wouldn’t matter.

Second, there have been some pretty dark times in the history of humanity. I of think: 9/11 and World War II – with the Holocaust and use of atomic weapons, just to name a couple. To me it would’ve been those times when the world might have needed a little correctional tweak to set us on the ‘right’ path – if there were such a pre-ordained path. The changing marital status of a former governor does not seem warrant the end of the world.

And then there’s the media. If Harold Camping’s lunatic prognostications had never been brought to the attention of the general public, only a very few people would’ve known about it and so much valuable time and energy would not have been wasted. Can I get 90 seconds of time on the national network news, reporting on how appalling it is that we Americans will tolerate how asinine our Congress behaves? I think not. But if I can come up with a hair-brained scheme…..well, that’s different!
Just my opinion folks….