Was there an Asteriod or Comet that passed near to the Earth this past year? If so, what was the name and how close? Possibly within the past two years? Where can I find more information?
2007-05-03 13:04:08 · 3 answers · asked by audine 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Here's a link to an article that tells about an asteroid (designated 2004 YD5 ) that came within 22,000 miles of Earth a couple of years ago. That's VERY close... closer than our geostationary satellites!
Small Asteroid Passes Between Satellites and Earth
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/asteroid_close_041222.html
About two and a half years ago... hope that still fits within your search frame :)
Here's a nice little java applet showing the orbit and you can configure it either forward or backward in time to see future or past approaches ... pretty cool ;)
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2004%20YD5;orb=1
2007-05-03 16:27:15 · answer #1 · answered by John T 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Why not try the JPL NEO page? You can look up tables of close approaches in either the past or the future and also make lists limited to objects larger than a particular size (well technically brighter than a cerain brightness which is thought to be correlated to larger than a certain size)
2007-05-05 01:04:28 · answer #2 · answered by Peter T 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Comet McNaught didn't really get that close to Earth, but it got close to the Sun and became very bright. Too bad it was mostly visible from the southern hemisphere. Us northerners mostly missed out seeing it.
2007-05-03 13:17:32 · answer #3 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋