Comments on: philplait rock video

By: Allanimal

Allanimal — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:53:22 +0000

Contrary to popular imagery, the asteroid belt is mostly empty. The asteroids are spread over such a large volume that it would be highly improbable to reach an asteroid without aiming carefully.

Man, that just ruins one of my favorite 80′s video games…
(Unless the ship was REALLY big…)

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:28:36 +0000

Err... Phil, I think that your morning coffee had not kicked-in yet and, consequently, you have misinterpreted Blue Fire's web-site, which is called "Eclectic [_E_C_L_E_C_T_I_C_] Universe", not "Electric Universe". Definition of eclectic.

By: Dave Gill

Dave Gill — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:10:58 +0000

Hi, Phil
I embarked on a similar quest several years ago to help a dear friend, the late Richard Emmons, see his “pet rock”, 5391 Emmons – named for him by the late Eleanor Helin. I had help in getting it imaged as well. For the story, see http://www.twcac.org/onlinehorizon/rock_hounds.htm and http://www.twcac.org/onlinehorizon/5391emmonsindex.htm

Thanks for reminding me of that fun time. And I hope you get a taker.

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:35:28 +0000

~~Blue Fire, given that your name links to an Electric Universe site, I can assume you are impenetrable to logic~~, but had it occurred to you that maybe I don’t have a telescope/camera that can do it? But thanks for trolling here. I’d give you a 2/10, because the answer was so obvious.

Edited to add: my mistake about the URL, it’s eclectic not electric. My apologies; that’s what I get for being snarky. My apologies to Blue Fire.

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:13:01 +0000

Davidlpf:

I bet his head has a higher albedo.

Only when he’s not wearing his baseball cap!

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:00:58 +0000

ChazInMT:

I think this would be a good opportunity to help dispel one of the myths that everyone seems to always perpetuate, and that is the Asteroid Belt being cluttered with asteroids like they’re all just a few hundred yards apart. When ever it is depicted on TV, in artists conceptions, & such, you see tens or hundreds of them all in the same frame banging into each other like a scene from Star Wars.

Extract from Wikipedia -- Asteroid belt (click on my name for the link):

Contrary to popular imagery, the asteroid belt is mostly empty. The asteroids are spread over such a large volume that it would be highly improbable to reach an asteroid without aiming carefully. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of asteroids are currently known, and the total number ranges in the millions or more, depending on the lower size cutoff. Over 200 asteroids are known to be larger than 100 km, while a survey in the infrared wavelengths shows that the main belt has 700 000 to 1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more. The apparent magnitudes of most of the known asteroids are 11–19, with the median at about 16.
The total mass of the asteroid belt is estimated to be 3.0×10²¹ – 3.6×10²¹ kilograms, which is just 4% of the Earth's Moon. [My emphasis.] Its four largest objects, 1 Ceres, 4 Vesta, 2 Pallas and 10 Hygiea, account for half of the belt's total mass, with almost one-third accounted for by Ceres alone. Ceres's orbital distance, 2.8 AU, is also the location of the asteroid belt's center of mass.

By: Blue Fire

Blue Fire — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:35:53 +0000

And, as an astronomer yourself, the reason YOU won’t deign to image the asteroid named after you is . . . what, exactly? Just wondering.

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 06:12:45 +0000

Phil Plait, I figured that you might like this:

Orbital Characteristics of 165347 Philplait
(Click on image for the link to the JPL/NASA interactive tool).

By: GT

GT — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 03:46:45 +0000

And you didn’t even have to pay “Rocky” to get a “star” named after you.

By: dre

dre — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:23:31 +0000

The processing on the images makes it look a little artificial – but if you trust the photographer, I trust you. More importantly, please see if you can get mAnn Coulter to stop staring at me like that [shudder].

By: ChazInMT

ChazInMT — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:56:49 +0000

Hey Phil, I think this would be a good opportunity to help dispel one of the myths that everyone seems to always perpetuate, and that is the Asteroid Belt being cluttered with asteroids like they’re all just a few hundred yards apart. When ever it is depicted on TV, in artists conceptions, & such, you see tens or hundreds of them all in the same frame banging into each other like a scene from Star Wars.
Fact is, asteroids are about 300,000 miles apart on average…the distance between the earth & moon. Very low density in real terms yet few people know this. Also, from what I understand, NASA just sends spacecraft through the belt without much worry because the chance of an asteroid smacking into a spacecraft traveling through the region are very small. As a guy who likes to see things depicted as they are in reality, it bugs me to the core. Thanks.
Pax

By: John Paradox

John Paradox — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:37:21 +0000

Okay, so now you’re a ‘rock star’?

J/P=?

By: Bart

Bart — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:25:16 +0000

So what you’re telling us is that philplait has been rickrolled.

By: Davidlpf

Davidlpf — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:57:08 +0000

@IVAN3MAN
I bet his head has a higher albedo.

By: tacitus

tacitus — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:51:51 +0000

Hey, Phil! I’m not in the running, but how much is a cool image/animation of your namesake worth to you. I would have thought you can sweeten the pot a little by offering up a prize for the best one — a signed copy of your book at the very least. Don’t be a stingy fellow!!

By: Romeo Vitelli

Romeo Vitelli — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:35:55 +0000

Do you get mineral rights for this sucker?

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:32:10 +0000

Phil Plait: “165347 philplait is a smallish rock about 1.3 kilometers across, just shy of a mile.”

Almost as wide as your ego!

By: chief

chief — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:31:33 +0000

Shoot, with the header I thought you were branching out into something cool but found that you had this named after you, forget cool, go for freaking cool.

By: ChaoSkeptic

ChaoSkeptic — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:30:20 +0000

Opposition on the Ides of March, you say? Tis a very ominious portent from the heavens!

By: Derek Colanduno

Derek Colanduno — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:30:04 +0000

Man!

Where is the love? You forgot about the ones named after me and Swoopy! I think ours were named before the others you mentioned!