XP14 Asteroid & Gravity Question

[jamocamac]

I had a question about the closely approaching asteroid XP14 that will be coming close to Earth within the next couple of days. I know they say that we will be untouched, but what does its close proximity do to its path? Is our gravity not strong enough to change it or even suck it in, or even clip the moon? Anyone with any kind of answer would calm my curriousity, thanx in advance.

 

[tony873004]

The encounter with Earth will lower XP14's orbit by about 900,000 kilometers. This will shorten its period by a little.<br /><br />Our gravity is not strong enough to suck it in and cause a collision. That is because it is moving too fast.<br /><br />The closest it will come to the Moon is 766,000 kilometers, much farther than its closest approach to Earth.

 

[sphynx]

I do not know if will be useful, but them notice that to the early morning on Monday July 3, 2006 an little asteroid (600 meters) the 2004 XP14 will pass from Andromeda toward Perseo to traves of Cassiopeia, during some few hours will be seen with magnitude 11ª, being visible for instruments since 6 inches or larger. <br />Itself edge especially in the US. <br />I have observed it with this flight simiulator of the NASA http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=2004+XP14, and me not any grace has done to see the distance that is going to pass: 0,0035 AU… (900.000 km...? i dont think that...)Is but fence that the Moon! : close to us… to pass scraping…<br />Sphynx<br /><br />http://skyandtelescope.com/Default.asp <br /><br />

 

[elpsky]

We should hitch a ride on the XP14 astereoid and get a free tour of Venus and Mercury. What about a spacecraft that could land and send TV pictures of the places that the asteroid gets close to and maybe launch short missions from it to the planets that it flies close to and take samples and maybe send them back to Earth on its next flyby.

 

[qso1]

I'm not familiar with this particular asteroid but thats an excellent idea if XP14 does these flybys regularly. If its a one time thing, the development cycle of an unmanned craft would prohibit being ready in time to take advantage of the asteroids flybys.<br /><br />Your idea could be applied to other asteroids as well, hitching a ride on asteroids that flypast planets. I don't think I've heard of that before which makes it unique.<br /><br />BTW, welcome to SDC. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[tony873004]

In order to land on it, we'd have to match speeds with it, which would put us on an identical solar orbit whether we landed or not. So we'd visit the same places whether we landed on it or not.<br /><br />And it's just randomly cruising through the solar system (well, kinda...). A more deliberate orbit would yield much better science.<br /><br />And landing on it would mean we'd have to compensate for its rotation when taking pictures of the other planets as we passed near.

 

[robnissen]

"Your idea could be applied to other asteroids as well, hitching a ride on asteroids that flypast planets. I don't think I've heard of that before which makes it unique."<br /><br />This is similar to a post I had a while back. I suggested sening astronauts to the asteroid that's flying by earth in 2028(?). Use up almost all fuel getting to the asteroid, land on it, spend some time exploring (time spent would depend when its landed on), and then step off, when the asteroid is 20K miles from Earth, for an almost free ride home. Obviously, the timing of this would have to be very precise, but I think its something that could be done.

 

[mikeemmert]

Is there a heat shield that can take the flyby speed? Asteroids travel awfully fast.

 

[CalliArcale]

The best bet would probably be to exploit Lagrange points so it's not so expensive to slow down to a survivable speed. Unfortunately, this severely limits the options. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[bdewoody]

Well XP14 has come and gone and we are still here, as all reasonable folk expected. But I am curious about how much the earth does affect one of these objects each time it makes such a close approach. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em><font size="2">Bob DeWoody</font></em> </div>

 

[3488]

I agree. There is often a lot of crack pot lunacy when this sort of thing happens. Do you remeber when Shoemaker Levi 9 impacted Jupiter (July 1994), that some rumours spread within the UFO / weirdo communitiy that a fragment missed Jupiter & was heading to collide with Earth??<br /><br />Do we know when the Radar Images of 2004 XP 14 will be available. Just curious to see what this flying mountain looks like. Will see if it is like the tiny 630 metre long asteroid 25143 Itokawa (seen below, as imaged by Hayabusa / Muses C - JAXA). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Probably depends on a) whether anybody took any, and b) whether they feel like sharing. NASA missions are generally very good about providing extremely easy access to mission imagery. (They actually devote a significant amount of budget to this endeavor.) But small groups of astronomers working on university fellowships may not be as generous -- in part due to lack of time and funds, and in part due to concerns that somebody else will make the big discovery from their hard-earned data before they have a chance to analyze it completely. The latter worry can make academics a little secretive with their data at times. They always share it eventually (albeit usually in a medium such an esoteric peer-reviewed journal, rather than something the public subscribes to), because that's the only way they can get recognition for their discoveries and their hard work. But "eventually" is a time dictated by the researchers' own schedule, the availability of funds, and whether or not they actually find something worth publishing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

We may keep ourselves satisfied by NEAR mission picture of eros?