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Asteroid 1998 QE2 to Sail Past Earth


Waspie_Dwarf

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Asteroid 1998 QE2 to Sail Past Earth Nine Times Larger Than Cruise Ship

On May 31, 2013, asteroid 1998 QE2 will sail serenely past Earth, getting no closer than about 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers), or about 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon. And while QE2 is not of much interest to those astronomers and scientists on the lookout for hazardous asteroids, it is of interest to those who dabble in radar astronomy and have a 230-foot (70-meter) -- or larger -- radar telescope at their disposal.

"Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be an outstanding radar imaging target at Goldstone and Arecibo and we expect to obtain a series of high-resolution images that could reveal a wealth of surface features," said radar astronomer Lance Benner, the principal investigator for the Goldstone radar observations from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

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Surprised they(the MEDIA) aren't saying this is a "narrow miss" or a "extremely close call".

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Don't tell Americans the QE2 will be sailing by, they'll be lining up waiting for the buffet to open....

(No hate mail, I'm also American, lol.)

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Lucky it's not docking here.

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I suppose it's only a matter of time before one of those bad-boys slaps our butt.

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nice is it going to going to be see able with the naked eye?or do we need a telescope or high powered maybe night vision binoculars or etc.?pretty interesting though and awesome

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These Rock Stars have been passing by lately. Wasn't there one that came close a few months ago?

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Big whoop. It's not even close to putting us in danger.

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Don't tell Americans the QE2 will be sailing by, they'll be lining up waiting for the buffet to open....

(No hate mail, I'm also American, lol.)

Too late, the line goes around the block!!

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These Rock Stars have been passing by lately. Wasn't there one that came close a few months ago?

2, that made the news anyway, in the last year. I don't remember the names though it was shortly after that whole Mayan calendar we're going to die on the 21st thing.

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there's a comet due at the back end of the year that's been dubbed 'the comet of the century', and that promises to be MUCH more exciting!

(but you never really know with comets.)

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there's a comet due at the back end of the year that's been dubbed 'the comet of the century', and that promises to be MUCH more exciting!

(but you never really know with comets.)

I can't wait to hear all the doomsayers near the end of the year when that one comes round ranting about the rapture and how we all have to be "saved" before we die. :sleepy:

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nice is it going to going to be see able with the naked eye?or do we need a telescope or high powered maybe night vision binoculars or etc.?pretty interesting though and awesome

The object will attain a magnitude of ~ 16.8. Under normal conditions this would require a telescope with a objective mirror of about 33 inches (84 cm) diameter, in order to barely see it as a faint dot. The interesting views will come from radar astronomy, which will resolve features a few meters across on the object. Given the size of the object this works out to a picture of about 750 pixels per side, somewhere between the resolution of an analog and a HD television picture.
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The NASA article gives the diameter as ~ 2.7 km, but the tabular data at the NASA Near Earth Object page gives a range of values of 1.1 to 2.5 km. (average -- 1.8 km) The estimated size is based on the albedo, or color of the object. The darker it is, the less light it reflects, for a given size. The current size estimate seems to be based on an unexpectedly dark object; about 17% darker than the previously estimated darkest value, and 2 & 1/4 times darker than the previous median value.

Edited by bison
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These Rock Stars have been passing by lately. Wasn't there one that came close a few months ago?

I'd say that's to do with the fact that better technology and more effort is being put into find NEOs.

In the past, objects like this and the recent one would have glided past the earth and we would have been none the wiser.

Edited by Archimedes
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I find that 16 is the absolute magnitude of the asteroid. It will attain a visual magnitude of about 11, around the time of its closest approach. This should make it it visible in a good pair of binoculars, though only as a dim point of light, given reasonably good seeing conditions.

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The article never said the date it is supposed to pass by.

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The article never said the date it is supposed to pass by.

It did, they were the very first words:

On May 31, 2013, asteroid 1998 QE2 will sail serenely past Earth, getting no closer than about 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers), or about 15 times the distance between Earth and the moon.

arrow3.gifRead more...

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Will we be able to see this

Yes, with good 50mm binoculars (see my post ( # 17) above)
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so this asteroid is gonna hit earth and kill everyone?

No.
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Too late, the line goes around the block!!

Mahalo!

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It did, they were the very first words:

o my bad i must of missed that.

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