Asteroid buzzing Earth Wednesday - wanna watch?

[03bluecoupe]

Watch an asteroid whiz past Earth on Wednesday - Astronomy Magazine - Interactive Star Charts, Planets, Meteors, Comets, Telescopes

There's going to be a live sat. feed of the flyby. Should happen shortly after 4:00pm Eastern time.

Dunno what I'm going to see but I've got the live feed bookmarked and reminder set.

 

[Rukbat]

I love the way science reporters make absolute statements that no scientist would even think of thinking. "the asteroid poses no threat of striking Earth" ... not unless a tiny rock that's too small for us to detect strikes it at exactly the right spot, at exactly the right angle, at exactly the right time - then it could land in downtown Cleveland at 4:08 PM EST.

But we can't scare the public by saying "on its present course it poses no threat of striking Earth". 98 feet in diameter? Not quite as big a display as Chicxulub, but a heck of a lot bigger show than a 4th of July fireworks display. Chelyabinsk (February 15 of last year) was only 65 feet in diameter.