Newly discovered asteroid missed Earth but will return in 2032

MIAMI | Fri Oct 18, 2013 3:32pm EDT

MIAMI (Reuters) - A newly discovered asteroid made a "close" approach to Earth this week - at least in astronomical terms - and it is likely to come back around in 2032, but there is only a miniscule risk of it smashing into the planet, NASA said on Friday.

The asteroid known as 2013 TV135 came within 4.2 million miles (6.7 million km) of Earth on Wednesday, the U.S. space agency said.

It was discovered on October 8 by astronomers at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Ukraine. Astronomers have only a week's worth of observations to go on, but believe its orbit will bring it back to Earth's neighborhood in 2032.

The probability of the asteroid hitting Earth is only one in 63,000, they calculated.

"To put it another way, that puts the current probability of no impact in 2032 at about 99.998 percent," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

With additional observations in the coming months, scientists may be able to better calculate the asteroid's orbit and reduce their estimate of the risk or rule out any risk entirely, NASA said.

The asteroid is estimated to be 1,300 feet in size and its orbit is believed to carry it as far out as about three-quarters of the distance to Jupiter's orbit and as close to the sun as Earth's orbit, NASA said.

The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, known as "Spaceguard," detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth to determine if any could pose harm. The newly discovered asteroid is one of 10,332 near-Earth objects identified so far.

(Reporting by Jane Sutton; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Mothballed telescope gets new life as asteroid hunter

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Wed Aug 21, 2013 7:24pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA will reactivate a mothballed infrared space telescope for a three-year mission to search for potentially dangerous asteroids on a collision course with Earth, officials said on Wednesday.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, telescope also will hunt for targets for a future mission to send a robotic spacecraft to rendezvous with a small asteroid and relocate all or part of it into a high orbit around the moon.

Astronauts would then visit the relocated asteroid during a test flight of NASA's deep-space Orion capsule, scheduled for launch around 2021. Orion and a heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System are slated for an unmanned debut test flight in 2017.

NASA is spending about $3 billion a year for Orion and Space Launch System development.

Launched in December 2009, the WISE telescope spent 13 months scouting for telltale infrared signs of asteroids, stars, distant galaxies and other celestial objects, especially those too dim to radiate in visible light.

As part of its all-sky mapping mission, WISE observed more than 34,000 asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and another 135 asteroids in orbits that come close to Earth.

Overall, scientists cataloged more than 560 million objects with WISE.

Most of the telescope's instruments were turned off when its primary mission was completed in February 2011.

NASA plans to bring WISE out of hibernation next month and operate it for another three years, at a cost of about $5 million per year, said NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown.

"After a quick checkout, we're going to hit the ground running," WISE astronomer Amy Mainzer, with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

NASA already has found about 95 percent of the near-Earth asteroids that are .62 miles or larger in diameter.

The agency is about halfway through a 15-year effort to find 90 percent of all near-Earth objects that are as small as about 459 feet in diameter.

The search took on a note of urgency after a small asteroid blasted through the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 2013 and exploded with 20- to 30 times the force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. More than 1,500 people were injured by flying glass and debris.

Later that same day, a much larger but unrelated asteroid soared closer to Earth than the networks of communication satellites that ring the planet.

The events prompted Congressional hearings and new calls for NASA and other agencies to step up their asteroid detection initiatives.

The Obama administration proposes to double NASA's $20 million Near-Earth Objects detection programs for the 2014 fiscal year beginning October 1.

About 66 million years ago, an object 6 miles in diameter smashed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, leading to the demise of the dinosaurs, as well as most plant and animal life on Earth.

(Editing by Kevin Gray)

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Science Podcast - Markets vs. morals, cloud seeds, asteroid capture, and more (10 May 2013)

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Triple Asteroid System Triples Observers' Interest

Radar imaging at NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar on June 12 and 14, 2009, revealed that near-Earth asteroid 1994 CC is a triple system. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/GSSR August 06, 2009

Radar imaging at NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar on June 12 and 14, 2009, revealed that near-Earth asteroid 1994 CC is a triple system. Asteroid 1994 CC encountered Earth within 2.52 million kilometers (1.56 million miles) on June 10. Prior to the flyby, very little was known about this celestial body. 1994 CC is only the second triple system known in the near-Earth population. A team led by Marina Brozovic and Lance Benner, both scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., made the discovery.

1994 CC consists of a central object about 700 meters (2,300 feet) in diameter that has two smaller moons revolving around it. Preliminary analysis suggests that the two small satellites are at least 50 meters (164 feet) in diameter. Radar observations at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, led by the center's director Mike Nolan, also detected all three objects, and the combined observations from Goldstone and Arecibo will be utilized by JPL scientists and their colleagues to study 1994 CC's orbital and physical properties.

The next comparable Earth flyby for asteroid 1994 CC will occur in the year 2074 when the space rock trio flies past Earth at a distance of two-and-a-half million kilometers (1.6 million miles).

Of the hundreds of near-Earth asteroids observed by radar, only about 1 percent are triple systems.

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