2007 TU24 - A Close Shave

:shock:
Under a Min!
Wow.
Why the hell cant we have a fricken clear sky!!

Are these objects in Starry Night BTW?

Some more detail and some websites for those interested....




neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news157.html

Near-Earth Asteroid 2007 TU24 to Pass Close To Past Earth on Jan. 29 -
Should be Observable with Modest Sized Telescopes

Don Yeomans
NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office
January 22, 2008

Asteroid 2007 TU24, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on October 11, 2007 will closely approach the Earth to within 1.4 lunar distances (334,000 miles) on 2008 Jan. 29 08:33 UT. This object, between 150 and 600 meters in diameter, will reach an approximate apparent magnitude 10.3 on Jan. 29-30 before quickly becoming fainter as it moves further from Earth. For a brief time the asteroid will be observable in dark and clear skies with amateur telescopes of 3 inch apertures or larger.

For an interactive illustration of this object's orbit see:

ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2007+TU24&orb=1

The illustration below is courtesy of amateur astronomer Dr. Dale Ireland from Silverdale, WA. The illustration shows the asteroid's track on the sky for 3 days near the time of the close Earth approach as seen from the city of Philadelphia. Since the object's parallax will be a significant fraction of a degree, observers are encouraged to use our on-line Horizons ephemeris generation service for their specific locations. These personalized ephemeris tables can be generated at: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi?find_body=...amp;sstr=2007%20TU24

[Illustration]

Given the estimated number of near-Earth asteroids of this size (about 7,000 discovered and undiscovered objects), an object of this size would be expected to pass this close to Earth, on average, about every 5 years or so. The average interval between actual Earth impacts for an object of this size would be about 37,000 years. For the January 29th encounter, near Earth asteroid 2007 TU24 has no chance of hitting, or affecting, Earth.

2007 TU24 will be the closest currently known approach by a potentially hazardous asteroid of this size or larger until 2027. Plans have been made for the Goldstone planetary radar to observe this object Jan 23-24 and for the Arecibo radar to observe it Jan 27-28 and then Feb 1-4. High resolution radar imaging is expected, which may permit later 3-D shape reconstruction.

On the interactive diagram above, you cant even see the earth because of the asteroid orbit.

That's SCAREY.

I just did some calcs and I noticed that around 10pm this baby is moving at 2.33" per second!! That should be enough to make its motion visible in real time at high magnifications.

At 21:33:52UT TU24 is within 3" of star TYC 1754-230-2 (mag 9.92 in pisces). It would be easy to see real time motion when this appulse occurs.

Dave,

I was also about to ask the same question surrounding the apparent motion. Since my image train leads to an image scale of 1.27"/pixel, the rate given above is virtually two pixels per second ... which kills any effort at my end. I fail to see how I can not avoid any trailing even with one second exposures!

I had a similar problem with Tuttle and hence the absence of any results from me.

Anyone going to get any shots of the asteroid?

Looks like NASA already did.

www.universetoday.com/2008/01/26/astrono...-asteroid-2007-tu24/

I like the way the article says "we can guarantee that next week's 1.4-lunar-distance approach is the closest until at least the end of the next century" said Steve Ostro, JPL astronomer. Nothing is certain, it might be swayed by something not seen yet (like another asteroidal bump).

Still, we can't go worrying about every little detail like that - we'd never get any sleep.