Blogs / Bad Astronomy

Note: the Shuttle is due to launch Tuesday July 4 at 11:38 a.m. Pacific time, despite foam worries. I will blog here when I learn more. Now back to your regularly scheduled doomsday hyperbole.

Perhaps you’ve heard of asteroid 2004 XP 14. It’s something like 600-800 meters wide, and on the evening of July 2/3 it passed the Earth at a distance of roughly 430,000 km (270,000 miles), slightly more distant than the Moon. I would have blogged about it earlier, but honestly, I forgot. As near-Earth asteroids go this really is pretty close in astronomical terms, but still, 430,000 kilometers is far. And it only got as bright as 11th magnitude, which is 1/100th as bright as you can see with the unaided eye; you’d need a good ’scope and some real stargazing experience to have been able to see this rock at all.

Still, there’s a lot of astronomical interest in this asteroid because it’s well-placed for radar observations, and astronomers can use those to map out the three-dimensional structure of the asteroid, as well as get phenomenally good distance measurements. I haven’t heard how those went, but when I do I’ll write about it.

The thing is, there were a few folks who heard about this rock and were a bit scared. I’m not surprised, since most people have a hard time grasping the distance scale in the solar system, and may not understand that something can be close in astronomical terms and still be pretty far away. I expected to see a lot of doomsday mongering with this rock, but I didn’t see anything, which is another reason I forgot about it.

But then I happened to see a BBC web page about it. I took a frame grab of it:

Look at the headline: "Asteroid set for close encounter", and beneath it: " A large asteroid is set to pass Earth in a close encounter which scientists say will pose no danger."

That’s great that they would make sure that is up front and center, thus allaying any fears people might have of this. But then take a look at the illustration to the right. It shows an asteroid burning up over Earth, obviously about to impact! The caption says "Scientists keep a close eye on asteroids passing near Earth", which is true enough, but I rather wish they had used a different image. I wouldn’t say it’s really alarmist, but it’s certainly a poor choice, especially given the stress in the article that XP14 passed 400,000 kilometers off. This isn’t enough to chastise them about, but I think it’s worth noting here.

However, ITV news posted this image on their news page about XP14:

Nice huh? Their article is slightly more alarmist than the BBC, though they too do stress it won’t hit. Joining the fray is an ABC video linked from a Yahoo!News article, with a caption that says we "narrowly" avoided an impact; again, though, the video itself makes it clear it was still a long way off in human terms.

The Huffington Post joined the fray too, posting a picture with this headline:

I left a comment there, too. I probably should have corrected the spelling as well!
Anyway, if you see more dubious headlines or images, feel free to comment.

I won’t make any jokes about NASA on crack, I really won’t. Well, besides that one.

Anyway, I just read on Yahoo!News (I hate to link to them, given their recent shenanigans, but what the heck) that NASA plans to launch the Shuttle Tuesday despite a five-inch-long crack found in the foam insulation on the external tank. This decision is not set in stone, so we’ll see. The launch management people are meeting about the issue even as I write this. Stay tuned.

I know Superman grew up in Kansas, but now we have indirect scientific evidence of it.

Last year, a man found the largest sample of a Pallasite meteorite ever (1400 pounds!) in Kiowa county, Kansas. Pallasites are not much to look at from the outside: generally rusty orange and brown lumps. But slice them open, and they are the gems of the meteorite world. They’re woven through with iron in a web-like structure, and lodged in the interstices are crystals of olivine, greenish yellow and phenomenally beautiful when help up to the light.

As it so happens, kryptonite is a pallasite. Coincidence?

Well, now it’s come to my attention that the one meteorite found in Kansas isn’t alone: there appears to be a strewn field of meteorites in Kansas. And they’re all pallasites. Don Stimpson and Paul Ross, who found the meteorites, should be pretty happy since pallasites sell for quite a bit of money. Even small ones are commonly $5-10 per gram.

I have no idea how much Lex Luthor would pay for them. Given his history, probably nothing. But I’d keep them under constant guard.

Update: One of my favorite blogs, Thoughts from Kansas, has more info. Looks like there is a brewing storm over meteorites in Kansas.

Tip o’ the Whipple Shield to P Z Myers at Pharyngula, who really should have emailed me this link.

After the scrubbed launch on Sunday, NASA engineers walked around the Shuttle to inspect it and found a rather substantial crack in the insulation on the external fuel tank. They also found a piece of foam on the launch structure that apparently fell from or near the crack. It’s unclear how big of a deal this is, but it’s all over the web: CNN, MSNBC, SpaceFlightNow, and others. The Orlando Sentinel has a story with an image that might be of the crack (they don’t say exactly):

No doubt there will be a public statement from NASA about this very soon, as they were planning on trying to launch again on Tuesday. I’ll post as soon as I hear anything.