Документ взят из кэша поисковой машины. Адрес оригинального документа : http://www.astro.louisville.edu/shared_skies/archive/select/asteroids/yu55/20111108/yu55_20111109_wp.pdf Дата изменения: Thu Nov 10 01:55:41 2011 Дата индексирования: Sun Feb 3 16:40:39 2013 Кодировка: Поисковые слова: запрещенные спектральные линии

Asteroid 2055 YU55 passes close by Earth; how cl ose did . . .

http://www. washingtonpost. com/national/health-sci ence/as. . .

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Asteroid 2055 YU55 passes close by Earth; how close did it get?
We d n e sd ay, Nov e mb e r 9, 3:01 PM
An asteroid that scienti sts have b een watchin g and awaiting for years passed close to Earth on Tueday night, b ut how close a call was it? As Eliz ab eth Fl ock reported: An as teroid the s ize of an aircraft carrier m is s ed Earth by only 200,000 m iles as it fle w by Tues day night -- the clos es t an as teroid has been to Earth in 200 years As teroid 2005 YU55, a s it has been dubbed, s treaked by at about 30,000 m ph, but s om e s cientis ts and lucky am ateur as tronom ers caught a glim ps e in th eir teles copes , where they s aw s trange s tructures on the as teroid's dark-colored s urface. Scientists around the world took the opportuni ty to get a close look at the asteroid and exa m ine it for traces of wa ter. As AP explained: Scientis ts at NASA's D eep Space Network in the California des ert have tracked the quarte r-m ile-wide as teroid s i nce las t week as it approached from the d irection of the s un at 29 ,000 m ph. As tronom ers and am a teur s kygazers around the world kept watch, too. The Clay Center Obs e rvatory in Brookline, Ma s s ., planned an all-night viewing party s o children and parents could peer through res earch-grade teles copes and lis ten to lectu res . The as teroid can't be detected with the naked eye. For thos e without a tele s cope, the obs ervatory s tream ed video of the flyby live on Us tream , attracting s everal thous and viewers . The as teroid appeared as a whi te dot agains t a backdrop of s tars .
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Asteroid 2055 YU55 passes close by Earth; how cl ose did . . .

http://www. washingtonpost. com/national/health-sci ence/as. . .

"It's a fantas tic opportu nity to educate the pub lic that there are things out in s pace that we need to be aware of," i ncluding this lates t flyb y, s aid obs ervatory dire ctor Ron Dantowitz. Dantowitz added: "It wi ll m is s the Earth. We try to m ention that in eve ry breath." Since its dis covery s ix years ago, s cientis ts h ave been m onitoring th e s pherical, coal-colored as teroid a s it s lowly s pins throug h s pace and were con fident it pos ed no danger. As teroids are leftovers from the form ation of the s olar s ys tem s om e 4.5 billion years ago. Scientis ts believe their growth was s tunted by Jupiter's gravitational pull and never had the chance to becom e full-fledged planets . Piece s of as teroids periodically break off and m ake fiery plunges through the atm os phere as m eteorites . Don Yeom ans , who he ads NASA's Near Earth Object Program , s aid 2005 YU55 is the type of as teroid that hu m ans m ay want to vis i t becaus e it contains carbon-bas ed m aterials and pos s ibly frozen wa ter. With the s pace s huttle program retired, the Obam a adm inis tration w ants as tronauts to land on an as teroid as a s tepping s tone to Ma rs . What would happen if a n asteroid the siz e of 2 005 YU55 hit the Earth ? Brad Plum er explained the potential dam age and a nifty tool for estim ating asteroid im pact d am age. Jay Melos h, an atm os p heric s cientis t at Purdu e, has created a that lets you figure out the cons equences of a large as teroid hi as teroid of the m om en t, YU55, were to enter the Earth's atm os s econd, it would burn u p, and the rem aining chunks would, on m iles wide and 1,700 feet deep. nifty little "im pact calculator" tting the Earth. If the p h e re a t 1 1 m i l e s p e r im pa ct, create a crater four

"Sixty m iles away from the im pact s ite the hea t from the fireball would caus e extens ive firs t-degree burns ," the Purdue team notes . "The s eis m ic s haking would knock down chim neys and the blas t wave would s hatter g las s windows ." The as teroid could technically wipe out a city the s ize of Chicago, although the chances of hitting a city are pretty s m all. If it landed in the ocean, it'd create ts unam i waves 60 fe et high. Fortunately, we probab ly don't have to worry a bout another as teroid this s ize m os eying near Earth until 2028. N ASA's Near Earth Object prog ram has been tracking obj ects in our vicinity that are m ore th an s ix-tenths of a m ile in diam eter -- the dan gerous ones , bas ically -- and now claim to ha ve dis covered m ore tha n 90 percent of them . Of cours e, s om etim es thes e objects can cree p up pretty quickly: YU5 5 was only dis covered in 2005, by the Univers ity of Arizona's Spacewatch Project. More from The W ashington Post Budget pres s ures s qu eeze the dream of Mars explorers Fight rages over Jam e s Webb Space Teles co pe
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Asteroid 2055 YU55 passes close by Earth; how cl ose did . . .

http://www. washingtonpost. com/national/health-sci ence/as. . .

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