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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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The annual Lyrid meteor shower is expected to peak in the hours before dawn on April 22nd. The shower has already started. You can find out here all about the Lyrids.
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Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,963 Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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What's the difference between a meteor, a meteorite and a meteoroid? Is one of them the same as a shooting star? And what about asteroids and planetoids - which one is a minor planet? If any of these terms have puzzled you, here is a guide to help you out. Meteor or Meteorite and Other Posers
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Joined: May 2010
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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From EarthSky: Asteroid 2014 JO25 will come closer – 4.6 lunar distances – than any asteroid this large since 2004. It won’t be visible to the eye, but, beginning on the morning of April 19, astronomers with large and small telescopes will be watching.
A big asteroid will safely sweep past Earth on Wednesday, April 19, 2017. It’ll come so close – and it’s known so far in advance – that scientists will be able to study the space rock using both radar and optical observations. The flyby should also be visible in amateur telescopes, beginning in the early morning hours on Wednesday and then again on Wednesday night. The asteroid appears to be roughly 2,000 feet (650 meters) in size, with a surface about twice as reflective as that of Earth’s moon. It’ll safely pass at some 1,098,733 miles (1,768,239 km) from our planet or about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon. If you have a telescope, here is more about how to view the asteroid.
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Joined: May 2010
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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One of the features of SpaceWeather.com is information on PHAs - Potentially Hazardous Asteroids. These are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time. On April 20, 2017 there were 1798 potentially hazardous asteroids. (This is the known total, not the number likely to be in our neighborhood today!) An AU is the Astronomical Unit, which is the distance from the Earth to the Sun. So 0.05 AU is approximately 150 million km (93 million miles) x 0.05. That's about 7.5 million km (4.7 million miles).
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Joined: May 2010
Posts: 11,963 Likes: 30
BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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A day before its closest approach, asteroid 2014 JO25 was imaged by radar with the 70-meter antenna of NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. This grid of 30 radar images, top left to lower right, reveals the two-lobed shape of the asteroid that rotates about once every five hours. Its largest lobe is about 610 meters across. On the list of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids, this space rock made its close approach to our planet on April 19, flying safely past at a distance of 1.8 million kilometers. That's over four times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. The asteroid was a faint and fast moving speck visible in backyard telescopes. Asteroid 2014 JO25 was discovered in May 2014 by A. D. Grauer of the Catalina Sky Survey, a project of NASA's Near-Earth Objects Observations Program in collaboration with the University of Arizona. Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Goldstone Solar System Radar
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Joined: Jan 2013
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Highest Posting Power Known to Humanity
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Highest Posting Power Known to Humanity
Joined: Jan 2013
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Joined: May 2010
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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BellaOnline Editor Renaissance Human
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Asteroid 2014 JO25 - as expected - safely passed by on Wednesday, missing us by over a million miles. As it was approaching, astronomers used the radio telescope at Arecibo (Puerto Rico) to get radar images. They found that it was bigger than previously thought and Edgar Rivera-ValentÃn, a planetary scientist at Arecibo Observatory, said: We found 2014 JO25 is a contact binary asteroid (two space rocks that were originally separate bodies) and each segment is about 2,100 feet (640 meters) and 2,198 feet (670 meters), for a total of about 0.8 miles (1.3 km) long. We also found the asteroid completes a rotation in about 3.5 hours. Here is a GIF showing Arecibo's radar image of 2014 JO25.
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Joined: Jan 2013
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Highest Posting Power Known to Humanity
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Highest Posting Power Known to Humanity
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