Asteroid 2012 QG42
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.
2 NEO's flying past Earth Sept. 13-14, 2012
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.
Asteroid 2012 QG42's flyby comes a few months after another recently discovered space rock, asteroid 2012 LZ1, made its closest approach to Earth just days after popping onto astronomers' radars.
"Near Earth Objects have been whizzing past us lately, undetected until they have been practically on top of us. This illustrates the need for continued and improved monitoring for our own future safety," Bob Berman, a Slooh editor and Astronomy Magazine columnist, said in a statement. "It is not a question of if, but when such an object will hit us, and how large and fast it may be going."
Berman added that to observe near-Earth asteroids like the one passing by on Thursday "provides instruction and perhaps motivation to keep up our guard, as well as a sense of relief as it speeds safely past at a mere one fifteenth the distance to the nearest planets."
Berman will join Slooh president Patrick Paolucci and Slooh engineer Paul Cox to provide commentary during the organization's webcast.
Exactly as NASA does to ensure mission success, deep space navigation mandates as accurate as early as possible details, whilst similarly requiring constant monitoring and comparison with desired destination(s).
Small changes made early enough, propagate over long periods of time to huge effective distances. Because fuel is so scarce, every wisp is used as effectively as possible.
When the outcome otherwise is likely mission failure, huge resources are applied and invested to ensure success.
When millions ( or more ) lives on Earth are in the balance, from 5 mile/s collisions of indeterminable megatons of explosive devastation -- one would expect and hope that very careful observations and categorizations of such risks -- are perennially made and updated, worldwide and as a shared global responsibility.
Perhaps the corporations are more inclined to wait for more optimum
"profit centers" to form, in the ashes of a major city near you ?
That we know of some of these near misses is actually great news, as that proves that many of the risks are being monitored and correlated with the vast numbers of negative possibilities.
The absolute worse case, is those huge iron-loaded rocks that literally 'come from directly behind the sun,' where most of our instrumentation is insensitive and woefully likely to be too late to make much of a difference.
Orbital perturbations occur continuously, as unknown ( or poorly characterized ) objects revolve about the sun amongst thousands of other ( mostly ) known massive objects. The tracking of Extinction Level Impactors ( ELI ) is not so easy, nor would be sending out the space marines to intercept and attempt to modify it's orbit.
In the larger context of corporate profits, many millions dying from Chernobyl / Fukushima ( etc ) radioactivity or Near Earth Objects colliding -- is just collateral damage.
We either invest ( better ) in having our future, or risk having ( much ) less of one.
CHOSE LIFE