Close-Shave Asteroid Caught on Camera | Wired Science

[Ian David]

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Close-Shave Asteroid Caught on Camera

* By Lisa Grossman Email Author
* September 8, 2010 |
* 2:45 pm |
* Categories: Space
*

When asteroid 2010 RX30 zipped past Earth early Wednesday, observers at the Remanzacco Observatory in Italy were ready. At 12:45 am local Italian time, amateur astronomers Ernesto Guido and Giovanni Sostero remotely controlled a 0.25-meter telescope in Mayhill, New Mexico through the Global Remote Astronomy Telescope Network. They got four separate exposures of 30-seconds each and stitched them together to make this animation.

At its closest approach, 2010 RX30 was about 154,100 miles from Earth, or 60 percent the distance between the Earth and the moon.

Another asteroid, 2010 RF12, will swing past Earth at a distance of 49,000 miles (20 percent the Earth-moon distance) at 5:12 p.m. EDT (0012 UT Thursday). Check back for more photos of these cosmic interlopers in action.



Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/asteroid-animation-2/#ixzz0yyFCZcYB

[AndyA]

1. In space terms, that one later today is going to be pretty close.

Yikes!

I often wonder about all that space junk we've got floating around in space. It seems we should go back up there and get some of it and bring it back for recycling or something.

We humans are such pigs, it's not enough that we trash the planet, we've got to trash the solar system as well. The Aliens must think we're the cockroaches of the universe.

[Duer 157099]

2. In frames 1 and 4, there is a light that only appears in each

They are over on the right side, about an inch apart. Each only appear in one frame.

What are they?

edit: there's a 3rd. Looks like all 3 are on a staight trajectory, so possibly satellite(s)?

[shireen]

4. probably a defect in the detector

They have a squarish appearance, not round like the stars.
I'm not sure what kind of detector was used, but for Hubble CCDs, we call them hot pixels.

[shireen]

5. ok, i'm sure ... bad pixels

if you watch the hot pixels, there's a slight motion that is in sync with the clearly-visible bad pixel columns to the left of the image.

[Duer 157099]

6. Sounds reasonable. Although...

I haven't brought out the straight-edge, but don't they look like they are in a straight line (the 3 points). If an artifact, does that still make sense?

[shireen]

7. they don't need to be in a straight line

Individual hot pixels appear random. For whatever reason, there's an elevated current associated with a specific pixel. For space instruments, a pixel could be damaged by cosmic ray hits. I'm not familiar with how ground-based CCDs are affected. It's possible that a manufacturing defect could cause it too. Hopefully, one of the CCD experts will chime in and clarify it.

:hi:

[shireen]

3. asteroid isn't that elongated ...

The telescope was tracking the motion of the stars, which is why they appear as point sources. Meanwhile, at 30 seconds per exposure, the asteroid was moving relative to the star field by the "length" of that cigar-shaped feature. That's a pretty fast little fella!