Breaking!! Near Earth Asteroid 2010 GU21 Swoops By Earth MAY 5, 2010!

So? Happens al ot y'know. It's the ones that DON'T swoop by that we should be concerned about.

The Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) 2010 GU21 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on April 5 2010 (MPEC 2010-G55) and has been designated as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) by the Minor Planet Center. We obtained Bessel BVRI photometry over the course of three nights at the JPL Table Mountain 0.6-m telescope (TMO), as illustrated in [1][2][3] and summarized in Table 1. Though the nights were clear and photometric to the 1-3% level, the high humidity, nearly full Moon, and low lunar elongation hampered our observations. 2010 GU21 will pass within approximately 8 lunar distances on May 05.25 2010 UT. This object can be considered a potential low delta-V spacecraft rendezvous target (dV=6.18 km/s).

The rotationally averaged colors (B-R=1.114+/-0.028 mag; V-R=0.402+/-0.020 mag; R-I=0.376+/-0.019 mag) of 2010 GU21 were found most compatible with an Xc-type spectral classification, an association obtained through a comparison of our colors with the 1341 asteroid spectra in the SMASS II database (Bus & Binzel 2002) [Figure 4 and Table 2]. X-type asteroids include high albedo E-types, moderate albedo M-types, and low-albedo P-type asteroids (Barucci & Tholen 1989). Moderate resolution spectroscopy, thermal flux measurements, and/or solar phase curves would be very useful in resolving this ambiguity. 2010 GU21 remains brighter than V=18 (our nominal cut-off for photometry at TMO) and at moderate declinations until May 10 2010 UT. We welcome collaborations with other observers.

Our light-time corrected photometry was converted to reduced magnitude assuming a phase parameter G=0.05, consistent with a low-albedo asteroid. The BVI data were registered to R using our nightly measured colors. After converting the photometry from magnitude to flux units, we performed a rotational period search using standard Fourier techniques. Figure 5 plots chi-squared 5th and 6th-order Fourier model misfit as a function of assumed rotation period. Assuming a double-peaked lightcurve, we found a best-fit synodic period P_syn = 4.326+/-0.005 hr, as shown in Figure 6 . Our photometry yields an absolute magnitude H_v=20.78+/-0.02 mag, implying an effective diameter D~200m for an albedo rho=0.05.

Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. The research described in this telegram was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The student participation was supported by the National Science Foundation under REU grant 0852088 to Cal State LA.

Link: Astronomer's Telegram (Broadband Photometry of the Potential

No problem

2010 GU21 - approaching
Approximate diameter: 206 meters (H=21.078)
Closest Earth approach: 7.99 LD at 0304 UTC tomorrow
Inside ten LD of Earth: 2 to 7 May
Data based on: JPL SSD orbit solution #27 downloaded yesterday based on 356 observations spanning 27 days
Optical observation: observed from 43 locations during 27.3116 days

discovered at 0807 UTC on 5 April by the Catalina Sky Survey
last observed at 1535 UTC on 2 May by Hamamatsu-Yuto Obs.
Note: radar target

Beware the Ides of March!

5-5-10
5+5=10
10/2=5
"May" spelled backwards spells "yam".
Do you see? DO YOU SEE???

Funny that... I read an article somewhere a few days ago that they found a much larger gravitational keyhole approx 8LD's from Earth...

damn dude, ROFLMFAO!!!!

8 x LD ... Not even close

Near Earth Asteroid ... MY A$$ !!!

This object can be considered a potential low delta-V spacecraft rendezvous target (dV=6.18 km/s).

What's this statement about ?????

yeah.... what IS up with that?

Basically means they can potentially use Earth-approaching asteroids as targets for exploration. Low probability on this one

that's what i was thinking.

ROFL ... somebody has an idea from what TOS episode that gif is ?

Closest Earth approach: 7.99 LD at 0304 UTC tomorrow
So how many American miles is that?

LMAOOOOOO THAT WAS A LAUGH

Just under 2 million miles

I believe it was the androids episode with Harry mudd...

Yep, called I Mudd.

:)

:drnk22:

Beta Taurid stream is the one to watch out for in a few months!

Thx a lot !

It's fairly obvious from this statement that we have something called Low Delta-V spacecraft at our command (whether we built it or stole it or reverse engineered it is anyone's guess) but it's fairly obvious that we have it. And this bit of info is being pointed out just in case whoever is running this Low-Delta-V craft - that this Asteroid is range to allow a visit is being pointed out.

Some asteroids and other space junk is thought to contain large quantities of gold, platinum, or Uranium, as well as diamonds and precious gems just laying about on their surface or manifesting as loose rocks, and/or rubble in cracks and crevices about the entity. A change to land on one, explore it for a bit, and pick up some of this mineral wealth could be quite lucrative for whomever was able to get there, walk about, and then leave with a few hundred pound of minerals and/or rocks in tow. Nice, eh? Especially if the few hundred pounds of rock turned out to be diamonds, or Platinum or even some mineral that is more valuable and rare.

This entity is due to pass earth at about 8 x a "lunar distance" which is roughly 250,000 miles. So this craft would need to be able to travel a distance of 2,000,000 miles into space, land on this rock and then take off and head back to earth fairly quickly.

An LD means Lunar Distance. It is the measurement of the distance from the earth to the moon.

1 LD = 238,855 miles /384,400 km

IF its closest projected approach is being calculated at 7.99 (8) LDs, then that means the 206 meter object will pass the earth at a distance of 1,908,451.45 miles /3,071,356 Kilometers.

No doom, folks.

Cmon! With in 8 LD's? Please.

6.18 is a familiar number. Nero's number was said to either be 616 or 666. Obviously it was 616 this whole time. We're about to see what 666 is all about, though. I testify to God God as my witness.

2010 GU21 refers to the capricorn constellation, which is at RA 21H coordinates.

We've been at RA this whole time. RA means 'sun' and has been worshiped since Egyptian times.

V=18 means Venus (which is spelled Sun eV backwards) is done with. No more of this foolishness. 18 hours happens to be the highest the sun can rise at Right Ascension. And to convert that to degrees, you multiply 18 x 15. 18 x 15 is 270 degrees, which is the -90 longitude. Earth is the ONLY planet with negative longitudes (that's stupid~!) -90 would be 270 degrees on any other planet, and 270 degrees on the Zodiac matches the sign of....(drum roll and double percussion blasts) CAPRICORN.

Saturn is depicted in art with an 'ear of corn'. IOWA is in the 'corn belt'. DO I SEE?? Do eye see ?? argh m8.

Last Edited by _Anon_ on 05/04/2010 03:07 PM

nope;-) please explain the 1st one as it doesn't make sense.