I’m not sure what any Lunar colonists would think of that arrangement, though.

“Are there no stones in Heaven but what serve for the thunder?” – Othello.

“A shooting star or meteor,
whichever name you like/
The minute it falls down to earth,
it’s called a a meteorite.”

I never knew about that on-orbit probe storage idea. I like it, but given current budget concerns, I can see how that’d go over like a lead balloon these days

EDIT: By rendezvouz, of course I meant matching speeds, sticking around to get a good look at the thing. Obviously, doing a flyby of something coming that close would be trivial, but you’d also have almost no time to get a close look. As you said, at that point you may as well stick to ground-based ‘scopes.

“NASA advocates $billion star treking while the solar system sends really good stuff within spitting distance of Earth 20+ times/year. Hey NASA, pluck the low-hanging fruit.”

No. As the vast majority of NEOs are small (regardless of albedo), the vast majority aren’t spotted until weeks to months beforehand. It takes months just to run comprehensive testing on a spacecraft, let alone run through a launch campaign on any orbital launcher. Getting a deep-space probe on its way on these unreal timescales would take the same billions you complain about.

There have been two options, somewhat. Sounding-rocket missions can be built and lit on these timescales, particularly if you’re re-flying an old instrument. However, you’d have to be satisfied with remote sensing via small-aperture telescopes. Something tells me that, aside from fewer and fewer bands that can’t be observed despite the atmosphere, that there isn’t much science to be gained from nearby objects by a sounding rocket, compared to a giant ground telescope or the odd orbiting telescope.

Years ago, there was a proposal for asteroid probes in on-orbit storage. Small probes would be launched to LEO, then boosted at some later date towards nearby asteroids yet undiscovered at launch time. The mission wasn’t approved, possibly because “asteroids yet undiscovered” doesn’t make a compelling science case. Particularly after Galileo, NEAR, etc. already bagged several of the more-accessible asteroid types already.

@18. Joseph G :

@8 MTU: Cool! Your post made me wonder – if small rocks are constantly hitting Earth, wouldn’t many also hit the moon, and wouldn’t the big ones make visible flashes? Sure enough, I found this: [link snipped] Video of a largish bowling-ball sized asteroid (meteoroid? Is it different if it hits the moon?) making a new crater.

Nice clip thanks.

As for terminology a “meteoroid” is just a very small asteroid. Or a very large particle of zodiacal dust. Not sure exactly where they draw the line between the two. Wikipedia (source linked to my name ) notes :

“A meteoroid is a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. …(snip) … Beech and Steel, writing in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, proposed a new definition where a meteoroid is between 100 µm and 10 m across. The NEO definition includes larger objects, up to 50 m in diameter, in this category. Very small meteoroids are known as micrometeoroids.”

What object they’re impacting on – Earth, Moon or Pluto – makes no difference to what the meteoroid is called although it could be described as a small comet fragment or asteroid depending on composition. “Bolide” covers pretty much every catgeory of impacting object.

@17. Infinite123Lifer : Thanks. My pleasure.

*****

PS. Today (29th October 2011 is exactly the 20th anniversary of the first ever asteroid fly past when in 1991 Galileo became the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid when it made a flyby of 951 Gaspra. (Wikipedia front page.)

That right there should convince people it’s not going to hit us. But then, some people just won’t see a phrase like that in their local newspapers.

Runar #19, I thought the exact same thing!

Of course, if a mission like that is mounted, it would aim to do much more. But given the ΔV, landing something delicate would be a challenge. Corner reflectors might survive a reasonably fast impact.

I wonder what the asteroid’s relative speed will be at closest approach.

Or, perhaps, this isn’t a real image, but is a plot of intensity returned versus time and frequency (as were the first radar maps of Venus back in the 1960s) andyou need an interferometer to make a real image. Guess I need to read the actual paper!

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/13jun_lunarsporadic/
Video of a largish bowling-ball sized asteroid (meteoroid? Is it different if it hits the moon?) making a new crater

Much appreciated for the input as always

Hmmm…sounds like 2008TC3 was sort of a test at the time. I wonder what the overall success rate of scientist’s has been with ALL of our calculations of the sort (*I would think it improves over time however with all the variables perhaps every event is vastly different despite what we have learned from our past successes and/or failures).

I also wonder how that success rate has changed over time with the addition of new technology and past experience. I would have to guess that there is always many unforeseeable circumstances which could cause our best calculations to wind up “no where close” especially being that no falling object is exactly like any other in trajectory in speed in mass in composition or in timing (*reiterated i guess). Luckily they all follow the same laws of physics!!!

In the article it mentioned that there was still a few kinks that needed to be ironed out. . .”some kinks” in these type of calculations must be more like “monumental tricks of the trade”. (i tried clicking the blue but the link is gone I think) Nevertheless, pretty inspiring of good news!

Good Lookin Out! literally

“Is there a chance that it could hit the moon?”

Not on this flyby: http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2005_YU55_approach_movie.gif

Comfortable????
320,000 km is comfortable?

Damn.
The moment I look at it it´s a mere second away!!!!
And you dare to call something like that comfortable?

You must be a denier.
Payroll.

Comforting us…. writing this stuff without your black trousers on.

EDIT : Checks – yep : 2008 TC3 which was spotted shortly before burning up over Sudan. Click on my name for link or cut’n'paste ‘Incoming Asteroid Burned Up in Earth’s Atmosphere Right on Time’ into the search box published on 80beats blog on the 8th October 2008. The BA also mentioned that TC2008 case in his blog post : ‘Incoming!!!’ posted October 6th, 2008 1:50 PM.