Asteroid passes 44,750 miles from Earth

[groovychk]

An asteroid of a similar size to a rock that exploded above Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs whizzed close past Earth on Monday, astronomers said on Tuesday.

2009 DD45, estimated to be between 21 and 47 meters (68 and 152 feet) across, raced by at 1344 GMT on Monday, the Planetary Society and astronomers' blogs reported.

The gap was just 72,000 kilometers (44,750 miles), or a fifth of the distance between Earth and the Moon and only twice the height of satellites in geosynchronous orbit, the website space.com said.

The estimated size is similar to that of an asteroid or comet that exploded above Tunguska, Siberia, on June 30 1908, flattening 80 million trees in a swathe of more than 2,000 square kilometres (800 square miles).

2009 DD45 was spotted last Saturday by astronomers at the Siding Spring Survey in Australia, and was verified by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Centre (MPC), which catalogues Solar System rocks.

The closest flyby listed by the MPC is 2004 FU162, a small asteroid about six metres (20 feet) across which came within about 6,500 kms (4,000 miles) of us in March 2004.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.783c3aae6eb418393fc6f8c443ef6765.2f1&show_article=1

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One of these things *is* going to hit us eventually. Sad that we aren't even really working on a way to stop them.

Comments

[drkbish.livejournal.com]

Remember that line in Armageddon where Billy Bob Thornton's character says the annual budget for finding near-Earth objects is approximately $1 million a year. According to the filmmakers that was the actual amount. They spent more making the film than the people actually looking for the objects get a year.

[time-lordy.livejournal.com]

If it really was an asteroid that exploded above Tunguska...

[time-lordy.livejournal.com]

and that was in 1998 dollars, and I'm fairly sure the Bush Administration did nothing to increase that amount.

[kyrie1618.livejournal.com]

It just struck me how our beanstalks will eventually get cut. If we make them with multiple cables? If we make them wide flexible ribbons? Well, they are thin but they are long. They'll snap when plucked.

We need space telescopes, mounted on armed bases built in GEO. I'm thinking this is a significant political/security risk. But we need easy fast access to enormously destructive energies in order to deflect asteroids.