* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Asteroid 2011 GP59

Blobrana · L

Video del asteroide 2011 GP59 que pasará hoy a las 5:00 de la tarde cerca de la Tierra

2011 GP59 ORBIT

Blobrana · L

Scientists find asteroid with potential power of 15 atomic bombs.

It was picked up by astronomers at the Observatorio Astronomico de Mallorca in Andalusia, Spain, who've since determined that it's heading towards us.
Tonight, it will miss pass just outside the moon's orbit - again, comparatively speaking because this is space, folks - at a distance of 533,000km.
Source

Blobrana · L

Update
The 37 - 83 metre wide asteroid 2011 GP59 will make a close pass (1.4 lunar distances, 0.0036 AU), travelling at 8.05 km/second, to the Earth-Moon system on the 15th April, 2011 @ 19:10 UT ±00:01.

See more

The Lunar Distance (LD), the distance between Earth and the Moon, equals 384,401 km, (or 0.00256 AU).

Blobrana · L

Fast-Rotating Asteroid Winks For Astronomer's Camera

Video imaging of newly discovered asteroid 2011 GP59 shows the object appearing to blink on and off about once every four minutes.
Amateur astronomers, including Nick James of Chelmsford, Essex, England, have captured video of the interesting object. James generated this video of GP59 on the night of Monday, April 11. The video, captured with an 11-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, is a compilation of 137 individual frames, each requiring 30 seconds of exposure. At the time, the asteroid was approximately 3,356,000 kilometres distant. Since then, the space rock has become something of a darling of the amateur astronomy community, with many videos available.
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Blobrana · L

Ephemeris

Date    TT    R. A. (2000) Decl.     Delta      r     Elong.  Phase     V
2011 04 09    15 33.77   +08 00.9    0.0316   1.026   140.8    38.1    18.4
2011 04 10    15 29.80   +07 35.4    0.0270   1.023   142.5    36.6    18.0
2011 04 11    15 24.13   +06 58.5    0.0224   1.020   144.7    34.5    17.5
2011 04 12    15 15.50   +06 01.4    0.0179   1.017   147.8    31.7    16.9
2011 04 13    15 01.03   +04 23.7    0.0134   1.014   152.4    27.3    16.2
2011 04 14    14 32.43   +01 06.1    0.00904  1.011   160.8    19.0    15.1
2011 04 15    13 16.07   -07 37.3    0.00513  1.008   175.9     4.1    13.2
2011 04 16    09 09.99   -24 29.4    0.00369  1.005   115.7    64.1    14.4
2011 04 17    06 03.61   -20 54.0    0.00659  1.002    72.2   107.4    17.4
2011 04 18    05 08.67   -17 06.5    0.0108   0.998    58.1   121.4    19.4
2011 04 19    04 45.67   -15 10.6    0.0152   0.995    51.6   127.7    20.7
2011 04 20    04 33.22   -14 02.9    0.0197   0.991    47.8   131.3    21.6

Google Earth file
Asteroid 2011 GP59.kmz (16kb, kmz)

Blobrana · L

Asteroid 2011GP59 passes within 1.4 lunar distances of the Earth on 2011 Apr 15. This video, taken on Apr 14, shows the asteroid over a 12-minute period. This asteroid rotates every 7 minutes, and the light variation from the rotation is easily seen.
The asteroid is the object that moves from the top-left to the middle-right of the screen.
The field size is about 15' x 10'.

Blobrana · L

The 37 - 83 metre wide asteroid 2011 GP59 will make a close pass (1.4 lunar distances, 0.0036 AU), travelling at 8.05 km/second, to the Earth-Moon system on the 15th April, 2011 @ 19:09 UT ±00:17.

See more

The Lunar Distance (LD), the distance between Earth and the Moon, equals 384,401 km, (or 0.00256 AU).

Blobrana · L

Asteroid 2011 GP59 is at Opposition at 10:30 GMT, 11th April, 2011.

Magnitude=11.1

Blobrana · L

Asteroid 2011 GP59 makes its closest to Earth at 13:40 GMT, 11th April, 2011.

Magnitude=11.7
Distance to Sun=1.003 AU
Distance to Earth=0.001 AU = only 0.5 lunar distances
Relative velocity=21.74 km/s