LINK: Asteroid Flies by Earth Thursday: How to Watch Online

A newfound  asteroid that may be the size of three football fields will whiz by Earth on Thursday (Sept. 13), and you can watch the close encounter live online.

Asteroid 2012 QG42 is between 625 feet to 1,400 feet wide (190 to 430 meters) and was first spotted by scientists last month. Researchers say the space rock has no chance of hitting Earth this week when it makes its closest approach on Thursday.

The asteroid will pass by at a safe distance of about 7.5 times the Earth-moon distance. The moon is, on average, about 238,000 miles from Earth.

Asteroid 2012 QG42 is, however, listed as a "potentially hazardous asteroid" by the Minor Planet Center at Cambridge, Mass., meaning it may pose a threat in the future.

At least two online observatories are tracking the asteroid's pass by Earth.

The Virtual Telescope Project run by astronomer Gianluca Masi in Italy began providing a live video stream today at 6 p.m. EDT (22:00 UTC). You can see that video stream here: http://www.virtualtelescope.eu/webtv/

The Virtual Telescope Project has been tracking asteroid 2012 QG42 since last week and posting images online.

On Thursday, the Slooh Space Camera night sky observing website will provide a live view of asteroid 2012 QG42's closest approach in a webcast starting at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT), offering views from at least one of its telescopes at its observatory in the Canary Islands, off the west coast of Africa. You can tune into the Slooh webcast by visiting the group's website here: http://www.slooh.com

READ MORE:  http://news.yahoo.com/asteroid-flies-earth-thursday-watch-online-230857282.html

SpaceWeather.com | Asteroid Debris caused electric-blue "mystery cloud" over Colorado and Utah on Nov 18, 2009

ASTEROID CLOUD: The electric-blue "mystery cloud" seen twisting over Colorado and Utah at daybreak on Nov. 18th is no longer a mystery. It was asteroid debris. Consider the following images:

On Oct. 7, 2008, asteroid 2008 TC3 hit the atmosphere and exploded over Sudan, creating the cloud pictured left. On Nov. 18, 2009, a similar-sized asteroid hit the atmosphere and exploded over Colorado and Utah in a flash of light that startled onlookers across at least eight states. Hours later, daybreak revealed the "mystery cloud" pictured right. It looks just like the debris from 2008 TC3.

Both clouds resemble icy noctilucent clouds that form naturally around Earth's poles during summer or in the aftermath of rocket launches. Researchers have long suspected that space dust can prompt the formation of noctilucent clouds by acting as nucleation points for high-altitude ice crystals. Dusty debris from exploded asteroids may serve this purpose quite nicely.

The explosion of 2008 TC3 in Oct. 2008 produced meteorites that were later recovered. The asteroid-blast of Nov. 2009 probably produced meteorites, too, although researchers aren't yet sure where they fell. Stay tuned for updates.

more images: from Lisa Cain of New Castle, Colorado; from Don Brown of Park City, Utah; from Daniel Owen of Monarch, Utah; from John Omohundro of Grand Junction, Colorado; from Jeff Kendrick of Salt Lake City, Utah; from Allan Jeffers of Denver, Colorado; from Scott Stringham of Salt Lake City, Utah; from Sean O'Leary of West Jordan, Utah;

SpaceWeather.com | Astroid 2009 WJ6 - 14 meter-wide space rock (45.932 feet wide) is flying past Earth today - about half the distance to the Moon!

November 20, 2009 - ASTEROID FLYBY: Newly-discovered asteroid 2009 WJ6 is flying past Earth today only 110,000 miles away--about half the distance to the Moon. At the time of closest approach (1100 UT on Nov. 20th) the 14-meter-wide space rock will glide through the northern constellation Draco glowing like a 16th magnitude star. [3D orbit] [ephemeris]

Cave Editor's NOTE: 14 meters = 45.9317585 feet

Telegraph.co.uk | An asteroid that exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere with the energy of three Hiroshima bombs this month

On 8 October, the rock crashed into the atmosphere above South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The blast was heard by monitoring stations 10,000 miles away, according to a report by scientists at the University of Western Ontario.

Scientists are concerned that it was not spotted by any telescopes, and that had it been larger it could have caused a disaster.

The asteroid, estimated to have been around 10 metres (30ft) across, hit the atmosphere at an estimated 45,000mph. The sudden deceleration caused it to heat up rapidly and explode with the force of 50,000 tons of TNT.

Luckily, due to the height of the explosion – estimated at between 15 and 20 km (nine to 12 miles) above sea level – no damage was caused on the ground.

However, if the object had been slightly larger – 20 to 30 metres (60 to 90ft) across – it could easily have caused extensive damage and loss of life, say researchers.

Very few objects smaller than 100 meters (300ft) across have been spotted and catalogued by astronomers. FULL STORY

Wired.com | Hunting Arctic Asteroid Impact With Hovercraft

October 12, 2009 - Two polar scientists hot on the trail of an arctic mystery have a new tool for exploration: a hovercraft, specially outfitted for week-long trips over the ice with scientific instruments and solar panels.

Their quarry is a nearly 22,000 square-mile patch of disturbed Arctic sea floor that could be evidence of a massive asteroid strike. John Hall, a now-retired geoscientist, discovered the anomaly during his late-60s graduate work aboard Fletcher’s Ice Island, a huge berg U.S. scientists inhabited for several decades.

Since then, no scientific vessel has been back over the area to collect more data. The massive icebreakers that have crunched through the arctic since the 1990s can’t reach the spot, said Yngve Kristofferson, a scientist and explorer at the University of Bergen in Norway. FULL STORY

Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand | The Juno asteroid is at opposition on September 22 when it will be at its brightest, magnitude 7.6

RELATED:

• ShortNews.com | Asteroid to be Visible Through Binoculars

• Press Trust of India |Treat for sky gazers as asteroid Juno set for a cameo
• http://jumk.de/astronomie/solar-system/juno.shtml

Illustration based on photos made in 1996.

Graphic: David A. Aguilar, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Juno is a very big asteroid made of stone in a very excentric orbit. It was the third minor planet to be discovered, after Ceres and Pallas.

Space.com | NASA's New Spaceships Could Tag-Team Asteroid

IndiaTimes.com | Scientists design 'gravity tractor' to save earth from asteroids

An asteroid of the size of a 10-story building flew past Earth on Tuesday about twice the distance as the highest Earth-orbiting satellites

Focus-Fen.net | Online monitoring of the 7 new asteroids will be held tonight in Bulgarian Observatory A-79

Wired Science News | Asteroid Impact Craters on Earth, Seen From Space

Seven new asteroids have been discovered by a group of Bulgarian astronomers from the Zvezdno Obshtestvo Observatory.

JPL.NASA.gov | NASA to Provide Web Updates on Objects Approaching Earth

July 29, 2009

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is introducing a new Web site that will provide a centralized resource for information on near-Earth objects - those asteroids and comets that can approach Earth. The "Asteroid Watch" site also contains links for the interested public to sign up for NASA's new asteroid widget and Twitter account.

"Most people have a fascination with near-Earth objects," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL. "And I have to agree with them. I have studied them for over three decades and I find them to be scientifically fascinating, and a few are potentially hazardous to Earth. The goal of our Web site is to provide the public with the most up-to-date and accurate information on these intriguing objects."

The new Asteroid Watch site is online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch .

It provides information on NASA's missions to study comets, asteroids and near-Earth objects, and also provides the basic facts and the very latest in science and research on these objects. News about near-Earth object discoveries and Earth flybys will be available and made accessible on the site via a downloadable widget and RSS feed. And for those who want to learn about their space rocks on the go, a Twitter feed is offered. "Asteroid Watch" also contains a link to JPL's more technical Near-Earth Objects Web site, where many scientists and researchers studying near-Earth objects go for information.

"This innovative new Web application gives the public an unprecedented look at what's going on in near-Earth space," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near-Earth Objects Observation program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA supports surveys that detect and track asteroids and comets passing close to Earth. The Near-Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," also plots the orbits of these objects to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

Asteroid probe set to “collide” with Earth in June 2010

SpaceWeather.com | Massive asteroid passing by earth today June 9th - only 9 millions miles away

BIG ASTEROID FLYBY: Today, June 9th, asteroid 2003 QO104 is passing by Earth only 9 million miles away. Measuring 2 miles in diameter, the massive asteroid is about 1/3rd the size of the K-T impactor that probably wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. There's no danger of a collision this time, it's just a photo-op.

flyby images: from Alberto Quijano Vodniza of Pasto, Nariño, Colombia