ASTEROID! Did You Duck?

ALOHA !

Rest in Peace 

Philly Joe Frazier,

Neighborhood Hero, Role Model,

Nurturer of Children & Youth

 

" People who cannot find time

for recreation

are obliged sooner or later

to find time

for illness. "

John Wanamaker

" A puppy's eyes

are the windows to

your soul. "

My Blog-Invisible Husband

" This is one of those views 

which are so absolutely absurd
 that only very learned men 

could possibly adopt them. "

Bertrand Russell

" The best and most beautiful

things in this world

cannot be seen
 or even heard,

but must be felt

with the heart. "

       Helen Keller

   > < } } ( ° >

That breeze you felt 

was Asteroid 2005 YU55 rushing past us

last night

at 6:28 p.m. EST Tuesday, Nov. 8.

That's 1:28 in my Tuesday afternoon,

Hawaiian Standard Time.

The 1,300-foot wide space object, 

(Bigger than a massive aircraft carrier)

traveling at about 29,000 mph  (8 miles a second!)

"just missed" our Earth

in the closest such interplanetary encounter

  in more than three decades.

It just happens to be (reportedly)

the largest object on record

to pass this close to us

with our foreknowledge.

  Italics mine and a little scared!

 

This visitor traveled light years to reach us, 

coming as near as 201,700 miles to our Earth.

  She was even closer

than the moon at one point! 

The moon felt a bit insecure for a moment.

So what keeps this thing moving, inertia?

Nope, it's YORP: 


" The … reflection and ... re-emission of sunlight from an asteroid's surface acting as a propulsion engine, " 

according to Finnish researcher

Mikko Kaasalainen of the University of Helsinki. 

The 'Yarkovsky-O'Keefe- Radzievskii-Paddack effect'

works like this:

 1) The asteroid turns
2) sunlight slightly warms each side,
3) which causes it to spin away 
and lose this heat to the chill of space.



Believe it or not,
that tiny spin really accumulates
over the course of trillions of miles or so!



“It’s a small effect on human time scales.
It’s an enormous effect on geological time scales.”
Jean-Luc Margot, a professor of astronomy at Cornell
told the New York Times.



The "feel good" part of the story: 
This thing has flown by the Earth

many times before,

but this is the first time we even noticed it!

Wait;

Does that make me feel  more or less
apprehensive?




So, as the children say:
"Nyah Nyah Nyah,
(with tongue out)
You MISSED ME!"




Glad YOU didn't miss today's vist,
Warmly, cloudia