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Astronomers lose asteroid

kojirohellfirekojirohellfire Member Posts: 1,606 Arc User
edited February 2014 in Ten Forward
http://io9.com/the-mammoth-asteroid-set-to-fly-by-earth-last-night-jus-1525397161

So the big rock that was supposed to buzz our blue planet went missing. So let the speculation run wild. (As stated in the article, it's quite likely someone goofed up on their math.)

Cue the 4d scout guy claiming it was aliens in 5... 4... 3... 2...
Post edited by Unknown User on

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    ryan218ryan218 Member Posts: 36,106 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    kojirohellfire wrote: »
    http://io9.com/the-mammoth-asteroid-set-to-fly-by-earth-last-night-jus-1525397161

    So the big rock that was supposed to buzz our blue planet went missing. So let the speculation run wild. (As stated in the article, it's quite likely someone goofed up on their math.)

    Cue the 4d scout guy claiming it was aliens in 5... 4... 3... 2...

    How the hell do you just 'lose' an asteroid?
    Old Wounds
    Trials of Blood and Fire
    Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
    In Cold Blood
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    kojirohellfirekojirohellfire Member Posts: 1,606 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    ryan218 wrote: »
    How the hell do you just 'lose' an asteroid?

    It's more likely than you think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_asteroid
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    sander233sander233 Member Posts: 3,992 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    ryan218 wrote: »
    How the hell do you just 'lose' an asteroid?

    It isn't where I left it just a minute ago!
    16d89073-5444-45ad-9053-45434ac9498f.png~original

    ...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
    - Anne Bredon
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    worffan101worffan101 Member Posts: 9,518 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Niiiiiice. Very nice.

    10 bars of latinum says the 4d scout guy will complain it's because of some guy or other with a name like Eternal Majestic Lord Villinus with an antimatter-powered beam boat or something.

    That or the Men In Black. I bet it was Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. ;)
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    kojirohellfirekojirohellfire Member Posts: 1,606 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    worffan101 wrote: »
    Niiiiiice. Very nice.

    10 bars of latinum says the 4d scout guy will complain it's because of some guy or other with a name like Eternal Majestic Lord Villinus with an antimatter-powered beam boat or something.

    That or the Men In Black. I bet it was Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. ;)

    Maybe it was SG-1?

    http://www.quickmeme.com/img/42/42830fcbb91cd82b3f67b56b0d7522b646dedc8bad23170f38f2025c7d2f3994.jpg
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    artan42artan42 Member Posts: 10,450 Bug Hunter
    edited February 2014
    Have they tried looking under the sofa or behind the fridge?
    22762792376_ac7c992b7c_o.png
    Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
    JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
    #TASforSTO


    '...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
    'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
    'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
    '...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
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    ursusmorologusursusmorologus Member Posts: 5,328 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    got close to sensor range and warped away
    [img]http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x57/UrsusMorologus/MechWarrior Online/Catapult_K2 sig.jpg[/img]
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    hevachhevach Member Posts: 2,777 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Quote from the article:
    asteroid 2000 EM26, with a diameter of 885 feet, roughly three football fields, has been quite elusive since its discovery. According to broadcast, the asteroid was discovered in 2000 and was observed 32 times but has not been seen since March 14, 2000.

    What the article leaves out is that it was first observed on March 5, 2000. So all confirmed observations were within a 9 day range, which is a pretty bad data set to accurately predict an orbit. Apparently several dozen attempts to find it have failed in the last fourteen years.

    I'm kind of surprised it wasn't already considered lost.
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    markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    the true number of lost asteroids by some definitions is over 150000.
    lol. :D I wonder what that figure looks like when you toss out all the refound ones?
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
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    sander233sander233 Member Posts: 3,992 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    artan42 wrote: »
    Have they tried looking under the sofa or behind the fridge?

    Mrs. Heisenberg: "I can't find my keys!"

    Dr. Heisenberg: "That's because you know too much about their momentum."
    16d89073-5444-45ad-9053-45434ac9498f.png~original

    ...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
    - Anne Bredon
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    steamwrightsteamwright Member Posts: 2,820
    edited February 2014
    Please tell Bruce Willis to go to standby mode. He may be needed.
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    jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,367 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Rent a warehouse. Cover the floor with a monocolor shag rug, the darker the better. Get a rock about the size of your fist. Paint it exactly the same color as the rug; let it dry. Now stand near the door. Close the door, dim the lights, toss the rock. Look away for a moment.

    Now, without moving from where you're standing - where's the rock?

    That is how you lose an asteroid.
    Lorna-Wing-sig.png
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    grandnaguszek1grandnaguszek1 Member Posts: 2,188 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    jonsills wrote: »
    Rent a warehouse. Cover the floor with a monocolor shag rug, the darker the better. Get a rock about the size of your fist. Paint it exactly the same color as the rug; let it dry. Now stand near the door. Close the door, dim the lights, toss the rock. Look away for a moment.

    Now, without moving from where you're standing - where's the rock?

    That is how you lose an asteroid.

    I think you just summed up this entire discussion perfectly.
    say-star-wars-is-better.jpg
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    steamwrightsteamwright Member Posts: 2,820
    edited February 2014
    jonsills wrote: »
    Rent a warehouse. Cover the floor with a monocolor shag rug, the darker the better. Get a rock about the size of your fist. Paint it exactly the same color as the rug; let it dry. Now stand near the door. Close the door, dim the lights, toss the rock. Look away for a moment.

    Now, without moving from where you're standing - where's the rock?

    That is how you lose an asteroid.

    are the astronomers in this case solely dependent on the visible spectrum, though? I'm not sure if radio telescopes are used for something so close to earth, but perhaps there are devices to watch using the non-visible spectrum?
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    crypticarmsmancrypticarmsman Member Posts: 4,113 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    I guess SG-1 saved the world again. ;)

    (Yes, I know different IP reference, but IMO, still appropriate here - and maybe TRUE! :eek::D:P)
    Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012
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    PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
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    jonsillsjonsills Member Posts: 10,367 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Radiotelescopes are of limited use for detecting anything that doesn't radiate in that portion of the EM spectrum - a rock, for instance. Mostly, we detect asteroids by sight, because there aren't really any good radar or ladar detection systems pointing out into space yet.

    And apparently this particular rock is dark in color, making things just that extra little bit more difficult...
    Lorna-Wing-sig.png
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    astro2244astro2244 Member Posts: 623 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    "Perhaps I can find new ways of motivating them"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cl7cxopNjg&feature=player_detailpage#t=44
    [SIGPIC]583px-Romulan_Star_Empire_logo%2C_2379.svg.png
    [/SIGPIC]
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    kojirohellfirekojirohellfire Member Posts: 1,606 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    crypticarmsman wrote: »
    I guess SG-1 saved the world again. ;)

    I already made that joke. :(
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    ryan218ryan218 Member Posts: 36,106 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    astro2244 wrote: »
    "Perhaps I can find new ways of motivating them"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cl7cxopNjg&feature=player_detailpage#t=44

    Wrong franchise, buddy. :D

    /jk

    I'm sure a visit from an Orion female would... 'motivate' them, too. :P;)
    Old Wounds
    Trials of Blood and Fire
    Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
    In Cold Blood
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    hevachhevach Member Posts: 2,777 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    jonsills wrote: »
    Radiotelescopes are of limited use for detecting anything that doesn't radiate in that portion of the EM spectrum - a rock, for instance. Mostly, we detect asteroids by sight, because there aren't really any good radar or ladar detection systems pointing out into space yet.

    And apparently this particular rock is dark in color, making things just that extra little bit more difficult...

    Radio is pretty much useless, but infrared does work. Our best tools for finding asteroids are infrared, not visible (WISE, for example). Asteroids are still pretty dim in infrared, though. Brighter than in visible, but still very nearly invisible.

    Still, the issue is that nothing in space is stationary, and it can be hard to get accurate distance measurements unless you can observe an object for several months. The biggest reason we "lose" asteroids like this one is that somebody miscalculates its distance in early observations, and our estimation of its orbit is thrown way off so we can't find it again later to refine the orbit - we prepare for some level of error, but past a certain point it's just too much sky to search for something so small and dim.

    So what happens is you'll have a bunch of observations in a short period of time as other observatories confirm the initial observation, and then nothing, just like with this one - 9 days of observation and then a week later nothing, and still nothing for fourteen years. It might be found years or decades later, it might never be found. In some cases, it'll be found but on such a different orbit from the initial estimate that it takes a while to realize it's the same asteroid and not a newly discovered one.
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    markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,231 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    And even IR has to deal with the background stellar objects, and by that I mean stars. Sure, they can be filtered out, but it still adds static to the process. And most asteroids that people are cataloguing nowadays are tiny... compared to Ceres.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
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    lilchibiclarililchibiclari Member Posts: 1,193 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Yes, I think they have already cataloged the majority of asteroids larger than 1 km, and there's almost certainly nearly zero objects with Earth-crossing orbits shorter than about ten years and diameters larger than about 30 km that remain uncharted.
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    doffingcomradedoffingcomrade Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Places they should check for the missing asteroid:
    1. The Overflow Bag
    2. Their Account Bank
    3. Their Fleet Bank
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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    centersolacecentersolace Member Posts: 11,178 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    doffingcomrade wrote: »
    Places they should check for the missing asteroid:
    1. The Overflow Bag
    2. Their Account Bank
    3. Their Fleet Bank

    4. Mailbag
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    artan42artan42 Member Posts: 10,450 Bug Hunter
    edited February 2014
    centersolace wrote: »
    4. Mailbag

    5. Cryptic's secret stash (where they keep all those master keys you know you bought but can't finde).
    22762792376_ac7c992b7c_o.png
    Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
    JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
    #TASforSTO


    '...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
    'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
    'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
    '...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
    'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
    '...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek

    Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
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    kirksplatkirksplat Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    Somebody in the universe violated the Prime Directive. That asteroid was meant to wipe us out.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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    maxvitormaxvitor Member Posts: 2,213 Arc User
    edited February 2014
    The player missed and they picked it up for another throw.
    If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
    Oh Hell NO to ARC
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