The newly discovered #asteroid 2023 FW13 (a=1.00 au; see MPEC G10) seems to be a quasi-satellite of the Earth. A preliminary simulation with @tony873004's orbit simulator shows it in this configuration for several centuries at least.
⏱️ Time of discovery 🔭 of #asteroids ☄️ which passed within 1 #lunar distance from #Earth in 📆 2023
After closest approach 37.90%
< 24 hours before 20.70%
up to 7 days before 34.50%
> one week before 6.90%
> 7 weeks before 0.00%
> one year before 0.00%
#PPOD: This image was taken by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft's MINERVA-II-b rover ("OWL") as it bounced across the surface of the asteroid 162173 Ryugu on 23 September 2018. Each bounce lasted about 15 minutes, in which time the tiny rover covered about 15 meters. Credit: JAXA
"#SpaceX satellites threaten to hide asteroids that pose danger to humanity
The International Astronomical Union demands that urgent action be taken against the uncontrolled proliferation of these devices. #Starlink satellites make it difficult to search for objects at risk of impacting the Earth"
Fascinating story about how the system #Scout predicted the impact of small (1m) asteroid 2024 BX1 on Earth, in Germany.
The asteroid was first observed less than three hours before its impact by Krisztián Sárneczky at Piszkéstető Mountain Station of the Konkoly Observatory near Budapest, Hungary.
🌠 SpaceX satellites threaten to hide asteroids that pose danger to humanity | Technology | EL PAÍS English
"It’s difficult to say exactly how many asteroids will be lost… but preliminary results suggest that for every five near-Earth asteroids we discover, we lose one solely due to constellation interference. That’s if no mitigation measures are taken”
Please reflect on this for a moment. We sent machines into space, collected material from asteroids, brought those samples back to our planet, and are now analyzing the contents. Yeah. We did that.
Human beings have so much potential. I’d love to see us tap into more of this good stuff that we do.
"Extinction Mechanisms" by @XKCD comic speculates about a less likely scenario on how the #asteroid might have killed the dinosaurs🦖🦕🌠. (Certainly some got hit. It didn't have to directly target them all to get them all.) https://xkcd.com/2845/#astronomy#LowFlyingRocks#WTF
Did you guys also know that #comets aren't special and aren't traveling any faster than any other #asteroid or other object out there, and they're not hot or on fire?
They're actually ice #balls, and the #sun makes the ice evaporate and then the solar wind (particles from the sun) blows that "atmosphere" away from the sun, creating the tail.
The tail doesn't even have anything to do with the direction that the ice ball is moving! The tail blows away from the sun. That's it.
A comet is literally a solar windsock.
Why did they never teach us this in school? Why did they allow us to think that comets were special fireballs moving at the speed of light across the galaxy?
Anyway, tonight and tomorrow night is the #Orionid Meteor Shower, which apparently is made up of debris from #Halley's #Comet. That's what got me on this topic.
Excited to (finally!) announce that my artwork FAREWELL TO BENNU is on the back cover of The Planetary Society’s December 2023 issue of THE PLANETARY REPORT!
An asteroid wanders through this image of galaxy UGC 12158 captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble took multiple exposures of the galaxy, causing the foreground asteroid to appear as a series of bright white dashes. The curved path is due to parallax as Hubble orbits the Earth.
#PPOD: This Hubble Space Telescope image shows boulders ejected from the asteroid Dimorphos after the DART spacecraft slammed into it in September 2022. The bright object with a tail is Dimorphos, and the tiny white dots clustered around it are boulders ranging in size from 1 to 6.7 meters (3 to 22 feet) in diameter. Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA)