Risky Asteroid 2009 FD

[silylene]

This is interesting, a risky asteroid with rather small error bars since we have a long observational arc.

2009 FD has a 1 in 400 chance of impact, with the most likely potential impacts in 2185 and 2190.
current arc = 626 days, 175 observations
JPL Sentry cumulative risk PS = -1.66, NEODyS cumulative risk PS = -1.67
Toriano Scale not listed, since potential impact would be > 100 yrs into the future.
diameter = 0.13 km
Vimpact = 19.4 km/sec
Impact energy = 120 MT (seems low to me)

The are high PS numbers for an event so far in the future. This is a risky asteroid, and bears close watch to see if a diversion will be required. 2009 FD is now risky asteroid #2 on the JPL Sentry list. Let's see what more observations show.

[The #1 risk spot is the larger asteroid 1999 RQ36, with a cumulative PS = -1.12, 1 in1410 cumulative impact probability, with 8 possible impacts between 2169 and 2199]

Clearly, so far it appears that the late 22'cnd century is going to be a risky time for asteroid impacts!

 

[MeteorWayne]

An interesting asteroid.. 1.25 year orbit that cycles from that of Venus to Mars.

First, the 2009 FD desigation means is was discovered 2nd half of March, 2009, but the arc goes back to late Feb. Must have been some pre discovery images found.

Yes, discovery obs made by OAM Observatory, LaSagra Spain and Monte Baldo in Italy; pre discovery images from Kitt Peak. Not observed between March 2009 and Nov 2010 when it was recovered by the Catalina Survey in Arizona, GiaGa obs in Italy, and by a weather miracle , Shefford observatory, 60 miles west of London.

Here's the sbdb page:

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

Notice the large number of close approaches to Venus, Earth and Mars, culminating in the last one listed..the 2185 one with the -1.69 PS. And also, the nominal orbit brings it even closer to the moon (0.6 LD) than to the earth (1.1 LD) on that March 29.

MW

PS, thanx for the heads up. I checked the Sentry page late yesterday, and it wasn't there!

 

[silylene]

An interesting asteroid.. 1.25 year orbit that cycles from that of Venus to Mars.
....Notice the large number of close approaches to Venus, Earth and Mars, culminating in the last one listed..the 2185 one with the -1.69 PS. And also, the nominal orbit brings it even closer to the moon (0.6 LD) than to the earth (1.1 LD) on that March 29.

MW
....

MW - I hadn't noticed the close approach to the moon on 2185. That is interesting too.

With asteroids 2009 FD and 1999 RQ36 both making multiple close approaches to earth (and moon!) in the last couple decades of the 22'cnd century, this will be an interesting time. I don't think we'll be around to witness this however...

What do you think are the chances of getting further observational data on 2009 FD in the upcoming year?

 

[ainu7]

Happy to see this kind of asteroid

It can be some weeks or months' fun since the orbit is already well defined and won't change much.

 

[MeteorWayne]

What do you think are the chances of getting further observational data on 2009 FD in the upcoming year?

Prett good, actually, for the big scopes. It's will placed in the sky (near Triangulum), so is visible all night long; current mag about +20.

But as ainu7 said, it's a fairly precise orbit with such a long arc, so I wouldn't expect it to change much. So once it fades out, it will move in near the top of the "not recently observed" risk page (After 60 days). Next opporunity for obs appears to be April and October 2014.

MW

 

[gravityTug]

This thread raises an interesting question, at what probability would we try to divert an asteroid? 0.01? 0.1?

 

[adrenalynn]

Depends where it's going to hit, I think. 0.001 if it's Iran. 0.0000000000001 if it's Washington DC. :lol:

 

[MeteorWayne]

Lets keep politics out of this thread. Even in humor.

Moderator Meteor Wayne

 

[adrenalynn]

Fair enough.

Given financial constraints, I would think it would depend where it was projected to hit.

Assuming there is are politics or finances involved, we'll just redirect all of them, regardless of any impact potential. Play cosmic pinball for fun and study.

 

[MeteorWayne]

If it's a planet killer, it really doesn't make much difference where it hits, does it?

In this case it wouldn't be.

 

[adrenalynn]

Sure, that's another constraint that could be added to the question.

On the flipside, we could add a constraint like its composition is actually 85% gem-quality forsteritic olivine (peridot), but smaller than a planet-killer. In which case, we might want to slow it down and then direct it down to a nice deserted spot and mine it.

There are all kinds of practical constraints we can add to the question.

 

[silylene]

This thread raises an interesting question, at what probability would we try to divert an asteroid? 0.01? 0.1?

Current estimates are an impact energy of 120 MT. That's not all that much. I doubt it is enough energy to cause a tsunami unless it impacts into a shallow continental shelf region of the ocean, or a lake. If it hits land, and it is a relatively uninhabited region, just let it happen. The destruction will be local, though significantly worse than Tunguska or even Tsar Bomba....closer to Krakatoa. If it is going to hit a city or highly inhabited region, then it needs to be diverted.

 

[MeteorWayne]

A few notes from wandering about the NEODyS site

2010 FD is listed even though the first (and highest risk) impact is in 2185, 175 years from now. They normally only run through 2080 or 2090. It is listed as a "special". My guess is that they ran it because of the high risk found by Sentry.

There are 179 total observations, Sentry rejected 4 as outliers leaving 175, NEODyS rejected 5 leaving 174. Both have a PS of -1.69 for the March 2185 impact.

By an interesting coincidence, the PS of -1.69 is exactly the same as that of 2008 TC3, which impacted the earth (with pieces subsequently recovered) over the Sudan in October 2008. Of course 2008 TC3 was smaller (H=30.3) vs H=22.2 (100-240m) for 2010 FD.

MW

 

[MeteorWayne]

Notes from Sentry front page:

"2010-Nov-23
Updating our note of 2010-Jul-26 below, another object has been found to have potential impacts in the far future, beyond 100 years. 2009 FD is roughly 130 m in diameter with an estimated 1 in 435 chance of impact in 2185. The current analysis assumes only gravitational accelerations and does not incorporate the potentially important Yarkovsky (thermal) accelerations. Thus the 2009 FD Risk Table may be refined by future analyses that attempt to incorporate a more complete dynamical model.

2010-Jul-26
In some cases, investigations into potential impacts are conducted for more than 100 years into the future. Currently, there are two well-observed objects for which long-term analyses have been carried out.
1. Asteroid (29075) 1950 DA, has a significant possibility of impact on March 16, 2880. A careful computation of the impact probability, which is less than 0.33%, is challenging because the orientation of its spin pole is poorly known. Giorgini et al. (Science, Vol. 296. no. 5565, pp. 132 - 136, 2002) analyzed this object's motion, which is discussed here:
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/1950da

2. The second object, (101955) 1999 RQ36, currently has non-zero impact probabilities on numerous occasions during the years after 2165. This is analyzed in a paper published by Milani et al. (Icarus, Vol. 203, pp. 460-471, 2009), which is available as here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.3631 . "