asteroid 2009 KK: Risk in May,Jun 2009

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Just a quick update. No new observations in the last two days.

Took a rough look at observation opportunities.

Assuming that for such a faint object the sun must be at least 15 degrees below the horizon, and for decent observations, the asteroid must be 15 degrees above, there's another 5 nights or so for the Tucson telescopes. Hawaii lasts a bit longer, no more than 10 days from now, after that we turn it over to Australia and other southern hemiphere sites for a few weeks until after the backlit pass below the sun.

MW

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Do you think there is a chance of impact with Mars on Jan 2021 Wayne? Looks like their orbits bring them quite close.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

LOL, not likely.

First of all, recall the warning on the dsplay:

This applet is provided as a 3D orbit visualization tool. The applet was implemented using 2-body methods, and hence should not be used for determining accurate long-term trajectories (over several years or decades) or planetary encounter circumstances. For accurate long-term ephemerides, please instead use our Horizons system.

So the 3D applet will not even show accurate positions for the earth encounter time in 2022.

Second, even the applet position isn't as close as you think.

If you select Mars for the center, then zoom in (the very bottom handle, then grab the handle on the right to change it to an overhead view, you can see that the asteroid (from overhead) crosses Mars' orbit on Dec 26th, while Mars crosses the asteroid's orbit on January 16th. If then you use the tilt control on the right again to look right along the plane of Mars' orbit, you can see on Jan 16th, the asteroid is well above the plane of Mars' orbit, and in fact is even slightly above the plane on Dec 26th.

Also, Raven, if you go to the bottom of the page that shows the orbit and click on "show close approach data" it will list lunar and planetary close approaches. The NEODyS CA page (which also would show them) is also clean:

http://newton.dm.unipi.it/neodys/index. ... 8&n=2009KK
Wayne

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Just so you know I'm not sleeping, no new observations reported today.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

No new obs again today. This gave me the opportunity to ponder the changes that occurred with the last set of observations. I think a lot has to do with perspective.

The highest impact risk/probabilities occurred with observations prior to June 6th.

2022 CA .1844 AU, 5/29 distance .2149 AU

The next set of obs on June 6th started to back off from that.

2022 CA .1921 AU, 5/29 distance .2243

Then came the June 9th obs which resulted in

2022 CA .2919, 5/29 distance .3473

I think one reason is the changing perspective. The change in RA (right ascension) has been pretty consitant since discovery; what has changed is the daily change in Declination.
On 5/17, the change in Dec was about 1/3 degree per day. By early June it's now over 1 degree per day. This is causing large and rapid refinements to the orbit.

Imagine you sit on a small hill. Out in the distance, a motorcyle is heading down a larger mountain toward you. Each day (minute) you measure the position and try and calculate the path. When it is far away and heading straight toward you, your measurements (with their error in position) allow many possible paths. The daily (minute by minute) change is very small, and your error ellpse in large compared to the daily (minute) change in position. Now on June 6th and 9th, it is dropping to your eye level as it reaches the point where it is even with you. The change in height is much larger, so now your measurement ellipse is smaller than the minute by minute change in position. Remember, the road (orbit) is going to pass below you to the right before it climbs the mountain behind you; you'll have to turn around to see it. (Evening sky to morning sky). And don't forget, you can't see it when it's below you becuse some bozo is shining a set of highway construction lights directly in your eyes in that diresction

This more or less decribes the physics of the observation. Any measurements now will contstrain the orbit to a much larger degree, since you now can begin to get a real sense of how fast the motorcyle (asteroid) is traveling down the road.

This though experiment brought to you by the world of 3D

Hope we get one new set of obs before whiteout!

Wayne

 

[silylene]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

MW, I also noticed the big change in apparent dec motion per day. That asteroid was really racing through the sky, maybe almost fast enough that it would have been noticable if a very patient persong could have watched it visually.

My question is, at very low dec, does the accuracy of the measurement remain as good? I noticed that the assumption is that measurement accuracy remains invariant with changes in dec.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Well, it depends on your location, and where the ecliptic is in the sky. Right now it will cross 0 degrees Dec (the ecliptic) June 16th (Oh, that's today ) Of more importance is how high above the horizon the observations are taken. The closer you are to the horizon, the greater the effect of turbulence near the horizon (especially in the hours right after sunset, which is the current situation) and the larger the corrections are for atmospheric refraction. For North America there's only a short interval right after it gets dark, so I figure even obs from Arizona/NewMexico would be of limited value at this time. Hawaii has a bit longer perhaps, also because it's western horizon consists of stable air over the ocean, not the roiling air over heated desert.

Yeah, 1 degree a day is about 2 arc minutes per hour..assuming you had a large enough scope to see a mag 20 object, the motion would be visible over a few hours.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Well the party's almost over for 2009 KK.

2022 CA is now .4124 AU
5/29 distance .5009
Plane crossing dates descending Feb 3 (this is the one near earth)
ascending 7/11 (this is the one near Mars)

Not sure if this will drop it off the risk list entirely, but it surely will cause a huge change.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

It appears I was right...no longer on the NEODyS risk list.

The final blow was a single observation from the Mt Lemmon location on June 17th.

 

[silylene]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

It was a fun party while it lasted.

 

[MichiganMan]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Alas....

though, the fact that I'm disappointed has to raise some serious ethical questions. It's like rooting for a tornado...

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Well, a near miss could be entertaining

And silylene, thanx for starting the thread. I found it very educational; I know I learned a heck of a lot about observations, tools and asteroid monitoring.

 

[silylene]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Yeah, I enjoyed it too, and this thread became popular enough to be #1 on google's search for a few weeks. We also pulled in several new good members to the SDC community with the interest in asteroids from this thread.

Perhaps we will find a new asteroid to watch sometime soon ?

Michigan Man, that is what I call 'The Dexter Effect': when one safely sitting in their armchair far away from apparent danger roots for tornadoes, asteroids, polar cap shrinkage, high hurricane activity, epidemics, CME's, blackouts and serial killers. (hopefully you have watched Dexter to understand why I gave this psychology this name). i suspect several of us here harbor it at least to some small degree.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

The official notice from Sentry :

As the set of available observations for a given object grows we are often able to rule out previous potential impacts as no longer consistent with the observations. The following table gives a listing of such objects for which all previously detected potential impacts have been eliminated.
Last Updated Jun 17, 2009

Object
Designation Date/Time Removed (UTC)
YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm

2009 KK 2009-06-17 08:52

{The sound of taps faintly playing in the distance}

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Do you think there is a chance of impact with Mars on Jan 2021 Wayne? Looks like their orbits bring them quite close.

An interesting effect of the newly revised orbit is that it brings the ascending node much closer to Mars' orbit, and in fact both NEODyS and JPL Sentry show a close approach to Mars on April 11 2017 at about .275 AU, comparable to how close it comes to earth this year, and in 2020, 2055, and 2140 (earth).

MW

 

[silylene]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

I wonder if, now that the chance of an earth collision is eliminated, whether we will continue to accumulate observational data to see if there is any chance for a Mars collision?

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Oh for sure. The observations go on and on, they just might not be as high a priority. But somewhere in that post whiteout time period there will be another few obs I would suspect. With the current searches, for an object brighter than mag 20, it almost has to turn up.

You may rest assured I'll keep an eye on it, just to round out this thread

 

[ginyoc]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Hey guys,
just wanted to say thanks for this thread (me too, I'm feeling a little sad that 2009 KK is no longer a risk, as queer as it sounds. But part of it is because governments often have to see something real before investing in science; maybe a bit of the dexter effect as well ).
We've gathered a lot of interesting information; thanks again to all that contributed to rendering it understandable.
Also I'm happy to have found this board (via google -> 2009 KK, btw ).
Keep up the good spirit!

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Do you think there is a chance of impact with Mars on Jan 2021 Wayne? Looks like their orbits bring them quite close.

An interesting effect of the newly revised orbit is that it brings the ascending node much closer to Mars' orbit, and in fact both NEODyS and JPL Sentry show a close approach to Mars on April 11 2017 at about .275 AU, comparable to how close it comes to earth this year, and in 2020, 2055, and 2140 (earth).

MW

Now being brought into such a close proximity, couldn't Mar's gravitational affects then come into play affecting future orbits? If the affect changes the orbit enough, couldn't it highen the risk of either a Mars or Earth impact? I know it's not much, but maybe just enough to change the orbital path slightly.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

The gravitational effects of all the planets, Ceres, Vesta, and one other asteroid (3rd most massive)

{Edit Pallas, actually 2nd most massive}

are taken into account in calculating future orbits.

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

lol, k. I guess that was an elementary question. What about solar wind velocity? Can that too play a role in changing an object the size of 2009 KK? I know enough that it doesn't affect planets, just curious about asteroids.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

Solar wind pressure does have a very small effect that is not accounted for, but it is quite small. Of more importance for asteroids with very close approaches to earth are several radiative effects such as the Yarkovsky and YORP effects.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarkovsky_effect


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YORP_effect


Also see my post later today in the thread about the possible earth collisions with Mars and Venus from a week or so ago.
I finally read the article in Nature early (very early) this morning and it's fascinating how they actually did the calculations.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

2 new observations to 2009 KK, I haven't compared the orbit with the last one, but now there are 2 Mars close approaches listed, and quite a few earth close approaches added next century.

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2 ... ;cad=1#cad

 

[MeteorWayne]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

The 2 new obs were on June 17 from the HFTN in Hawaii.

The 2022 circumstances are now:

CA 0.4229 AU on 5/6, 2022

The distance on 5/29 is 0.5145 AU

RMS residuals is 0.44424

Haven't posted this data in a while:

# obs. used (total) 108
data-arc span 31 days
first obs. used 2009-05-17
last obs. used 2009-06-17
planetary ephem. DE405
SB-pert. ephem. SB405-CPV-2
quality code 6
fit RMS .44424
data source ORB
producer Otto Matic
solution date 2009-Jun-18 00:50:10


Additional Information Earth MOID = .000664035 AU
T_jup = 4.371

e .4555740724620994 0.00021536 (eccentricity)
a 1.502905364468789 0.00049486 AU (semimajor axis)
q .8182206470526072 5.4429e-05 AU (perihelion)
i 18.23453999846237 0.0072972 deg (inclination)
node 68.23417427774741 0.0048828 deg
peri 247.2393397479579 0.00095232 deg
M 337.7951153731216 0.014312 deg
tp 2455042.008964462269
(2009-Jul-29.50896447) 0.0062587 JED
period 672.9702701687737 days +/- 0.33238
1.84 yr +/- 0.00091
n .5349419074778978 0.00026421 deg/d
Q 2.187590081884971 0.0007203 AU (aphelion)

 

[silylene]

Re: asteroid 2009 KK May 29 2022

MW, that is interesting. The Mars approaches are rather close, esp the one in 2017. We need more observational data.