Two Asteroids To Swing Past Earth Today

Experts at a NASA lab announce that two asteroids will pass close to our planet today, September 8. The two space rocks are in unrelated orbits, the team says, and pose no danger to Earth.

Each of the celestial bodies is a few meters in diameter, and wouldn't have caused any major damage if they were to strike anyway. What's interesting is that they will both move past the planet the same day, even if they come from very different orbits.

The attached graphic reveals the paths that the two asteroids will take as they swing past Earth. When they are nearest, they should become visible to amateur astronomers with moderate-sized telescopes.

Objects of this class, 10-meter-sized near-Earth asteroids, have a very small chance of hitting the planet overall, but a high chance of passing within lunar distance.

In fact, this happens once per day on average. Such a boulder slams into the atmosphere and burns up about once every 10 years.

Astronomers estimate that the undiscovered population of NEO orbiting the solar system in our vicinity could number as much as 50 million members.

The two new objects were discovered on Sunday, September 5, by the Tucson, Arizona-based Catalina Sky Survey, experts at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announce.

“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 am PDT (5:51 a.m. EDT) Wednesday,” the team explains.

“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 pm PDT (5:12 pm EDT),” they add.

Keeping an eye on NEO is extremely important, given the large number of unknown space rocks that lurk in outer space. On top of that, our solar system features two asteroid belts.

Dangerous objects may exist in both of them, and more telescopes should be built to try and detect, identify and analyze them.

NASA's Spitzer and WISE have already been conducting such research for some time, but the sheer volume of work to be done is massive.

Santa Fe Was Impacted by Huge Asteroid

Between 1.2 billion and 330 million years ago, the area near Santa Fe, New Mexico, was the site of a major asteroid impact. The conclusion belongs to a new study, which looked at an exposed mountain wall. The feature exposes a number of rock layers that look all the same to the eye of profane individuals, but which provide geologists with a wealth of data about Earth's distant past. It is estimated that the original impact crater was no less than between 6 and 13 kilometers in diameter, Space reports.

The reason why the timing of the impact cannot be determined with more accuracy is an anomaly known as the “Great Unconformity.” This means that the rock layers corresponding to the period stretching between 1.2-1.6 billion years and 330 million years ago are missing. This may have happened for a variety of reasons, but the leading theory is that a sea existed at this location a long time ago. This and other natural factors such as water receding, erosion, winds and so on, destroyed the rocks, which only began depositing ago when seas moved back on, 330 million years ago.

It was then that the first sediments were laid down again. This is why 1.2 billion year old layers of rock now lie directly underneath much newer ones. “We need an army of scientists and graduate students studying this site, over many, many years. It could take several lifetimes to do all the necessary work,” says University of New Mexico Institute of Meteoritics expert Horton Newsom. He conducted the work with colleagues Shawn Wright and Wolf Elston. He says that the team was amazed to learn that the rock layers are exposed directly.

This means that the team no longer needs digs in order to analyze the past events, just a lot of patience. “Such impact crater cross-sections are extremely rare in the world,” the expert says. He adds that the crater has long since been eroded entirely, but argues that additional studies of the site would help experts gain additional insights into how the impact affected the rocks underneath. The group will continue working in Santa Fe, with hopes that the actual size of the impact crater, as well as its age, will be accurately established.

Radar Clicks Asteroid Pic

Radar image of asteroid 2005 YU55. Image credit: NASA/Cornell/Arecibo

Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 was "imaged" by the Arecibo Radar Telescope in Puerto Rico on April 19. Data collected during Arecibo's observation of 2005 YU55 allowed the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to refine the space rock's orbit, allowing scientists to rule out any possibility of an Earth impact for the next 100 years.

The space rock was about 2.3 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Earth at the time this image of the radar echo was generated. The ghostly image has a resolution of 7.5 meters (25 feet) per pixel. It reveals 2005 YU55 as a spherical object about 400 meters (1,300 feet) in size.

Not only can the radar provide data on an asteroid's dimensions, but also on its exact location in space. Using Arecibo's high-precision radar astrometry capability, scientists were able to reduce orbit uncertainties for YU55 by 50 percent.

"At one time we had classified 2005 YU55 as a potential threat," said Steve Chesley, a scientist at JPL's Near-Earth Object Program Office.

"Prior to the Arecibo radar passes on April 19 thru 21, we had eliminated almost all upcoming Earth flybys as possibilities of impact. But there were a few that had a low remaining probability of impact.

"After incorporating the data from Arecibo, we were able to rule impacts out entirely for the next 100 years."

With more observations in the coming years, scientists may be able to accurately plot 2005 YU55's orbit even further out.

NASA detects, tracks and characterizes asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground- and space-based telescopes.

The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them, and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

Asteroid Ice May Be Living Fossil With Clues To Oceans' Origins

The first-ever discovery of ice and organic molecules on an asteroid may hold clues to the origins of Earth's oceans and life 4 billion years ago.

University of Central Florida researchers detected a thin layer of water ice and organic molecules on the surface of 24 Themis, the largest in a family of asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.

Their unexpected findings will be published in Nature, which will featuretwo complementary articles by the UCF-led team and by another team of planetary scientists.

"What we've found suggests that an asteroid like this one may have hit Earth and brought our planet its water," said UCF Physics Professor HumbertoCampins, the study's lead author.

Some theories suggest asteroids brought water to Earth after the planet formed dry. Scientists say the salts and water that have been found in some meteorites support this view.

Using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii, Campins and his team of researchers measured the intensity of the reflected sunlight as 24 Themis rotated. Differences in intensity at different wavelengths helped researchers determine the makeup of the asteroid's surface.

Researchers were surprised to find ice and carbon-based compounds evenly distributed on 24 Themis. More specifically, the discovery of ice is unexpected because surface ice should be short lived on asteroids, which are expected to be too warm for ice to survive for long.

The distance between this asteroid and the sun is about three times greater than between Earth and the sun.

Researchers will continue testing various hypotheses to explain the presence of ice. Perhaps most promising is the possibility that 24 Themis might have preserved the ice in its subsoil, just below the surface, as a kind of "living fossil" or remnant of an early solar system that was generally considered to have disappeared long ago.

Scientists Finds Evidence Of Water Ice On Asteroid's Surface

This image shows the Themis Main Belt which sits between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroid 24 Themis, one of the largest Main Belt asteroids, was examined by University of Tennessee scientist, Josh Emery, who found water ice and organic material on the asteroid's surface. His findings were published in the April 2010 issue of Nature. Credit: Josh Emery/University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Asteroids may not be the dark, dry, lifeless chunks of rock scientists have long thought.

Josh Emery, research assistant professor with the earth and planetary sciences department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has found evidence of water ice and organic material on the asteroid 24 Themis. This evidence supports the idea that asteroids could be responsible for bringing water and organic material to Earth.

The findings are detailed in the journal "Nature."

Using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Hawaii's Mauna Kea, Emery and Andrew Rivkin of Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Md., examined the surface of 24 Themis, a 200-kilometer wide asteroid that sits halfway between Mars and Jupiter.

By measuring the spectrum of infrared sunlight reflected by the object, the researchers found the spectrum consistent with frozen water and determined that 24 Themis is coated with a thin film of ice. They also detected organic material.

"The organics we detected appear to be complex, long-chained molecules. Raining down on a barren Earth in meteorites, these could have given a big kick-start to the development of life," Emery said.

Emery noted that finding ice on the surface of 24 Themis was a surprise because the surface is too warm for ice to stick around for a long time.

"This implies that ice is quite abundant in the interior of 24 Themis and perhaps many other asteroids. This ice on asteroids may be the answer to the puzzle of where Earth's water came from," he said.

Still, how the water ice got there is unclear.

24 Themis' proximity to the sun causes ice to vaporize. However, the researchers' findings suggest the asteroid's lifetime of ice ranges from thousands to millions of years depending on the latitude.

Therefore, the ice is regularly being replenished. The scientists theorize this is done by a process of "outgassing" in which ice buried within the asteroid escapes slowly as vapor migrates through cracks to the surface or as vapor escapes quickly and sporadically when 24 Themis is hit by space debris.

Since Themis is part of an asteroid "family" that was formed from a large impact and the subsequent fragmentation of a larger body long ago, this scenario means the parent body also had ice and has deep implications for how our solar system formed.

The discovery of abundant ice on 24 Themis demonstrates that water is much more common in the Main Belt of asteroids than previously thought.

"Asteroids have generally been viewed as being very dry. It now appears that when the asteroids and planets were first forming in the very early Solar System, ice extended far into the Main Belt region," Emery said.

"Extending this refined view to planetary systems around other stars, the building blocks of life - water and organics - may be more common near each star's habitable zone. The coming years will be truly exciting as astronomers search to discover whether these building blocks of life have worked their magic there as well."

The scientists' discovery also further blurs the line between comets and asteroids. Asteroids have long been considered to be rocky and comets icy. Furthermore, it was once believed that comets could have brought water to Earth. This theory was nixed when it was discovered comets' water has different isotopic signatures than water on Earth.

Now, due to Emery and Rivkin's findings, many wonder if asteroids could be responsible for seeding Earth with the ingredients for life.

Asteroid To Fly by Within Moon's Orbit Thursday

A newly discovered asteroid, 2010 GA6, will safely fly by Earth this Thursday at 4:06 p.m. Pacific (23:06 U.T.C.). At time of closest approach 2010 GA6 will be about 359,000 kilometers (223,000 miles) away from Earth - about 9/10ths the distance from to the moon.

The asteroid, approximately 22 meters (71 feet) wide, was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey, Tucson, Az.

"Fly bys of near-Earth objects within the moon's orbit occur every few weeks," said Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground and space-based telescopes.

The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.