At 15:15 18/03/04, Dale Ireland wrote: >I can't tell the details but this object looks like it might fly right >through the geosynchronous satellite area. Can anyone confirm that?? >Dale > >Orbital elements: >2004 FH >Epoch 2004 July 14.0 TT = JDT 2453200.5 MPC >M 28.04230 (2000.0) P Q >n 1.33238790 Peri. 62.95163 +0.84229753 +0.53901279 >a 0.8179290 Node 264.43190 -0.49463736 +0.77274043 >e 0.2884138 Incl. 0.01662 -0.21416991 +0.33516778 >P 0.74 H 25.7 G 0.15 > Better figures. Though I dispute the comment about good binoculars, since I doubt there are that many 25by 100 binocs around. At brightest mag 10.5 , roating every 3 minutes with a 1 mag brightness range. http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news142.html Recently Discovered Near-Earth Asteroid Makes Record-breaking Approach to Earth Steven R. Chesley Paul W. Chodas NASA's Near Earth Object Program Office Wednesday, March 17, 2004 A small near-Earth asteroid (NEA), discovered Monday night by the NASA-funded LINEAR asteroid survey, will make the closest approach to Earth ever recorded. There is no danger of a collision with the Earth during this encounter. The object, designated 2004 FH, is roughly 30 meters (100 feet) in diameter and will pass just 43,000 km (26,500 miles, or about 3.4 Earth diameters) above the Earth's surface on March 18th at 5:08 PM EST (2:08 PM PST, 22:08 UTC). (Close approach details here). On average, objects about the size of 2004 FH pass within this distance roughly once every two years, but most of these small objects pass undetected. This particular close approach is unusual only in the sense that scientists know about it. The fact that an object as small as asteroid 2004 FH has been discovered now is mostly a matter of perseverance by the LINEAR team, who are funded by NASA to search for larger kilometer-sized NEAs, but also routinely detect much smaller objects. Asteroid 2004 FH's point of closest approach with the Earth will be over the South Atlantic Ocean. Using a good pair of binoculars, the object will be bright enough to be seen during this close approach from areas of Europe, Asia and most of the Southern Hemisphere. Scientists look forward to the flyby as it will provide them an unprecedented opportunity to study a small NEA asteroid up close. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/Unsubscribe info, Frequently Asked Questions, SeeSat-L archive: http://www.satobs.org/seesat/seesatindex.html
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