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(meteorobs) (Fwd) NEWS
I believe that this is the asteroid that Pierre was talking about
this morning on the irc chat.
Kim
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Fri, 03 Jul 1998 21:15:05 -0400
From: JAY RESPLER <JRespler@surfnjdot net>
Organization: Sky Reporter at njsurf.com/skyviews/
To: JRespler@surfnjdot net
Subject: NEWS
July 3, 1998
Astronomers Say They Have Found a New Class of
Asteroid
By MALCOLM W. BROWNE
stronomers at the University of Hawaii have discovered an asteroid that
they believe represents a hitherto undetected type, a type that could hit
Earth without warning.
In a press release distributed Thursday, Dr. David Tholen and a graduate
student, Robert Whiteley, reported that the asteroid circles the sun entirely
within Earth's orbit. All other known Earth-approaching asteroids travel in orbits
that lie at least partly outside Earth's orbit.
The astronomers calculated that 1998 DK36, as the asteroid was designated, is
about 40 yards in diameter, and that if it hit Earth it would have about the same
effect as that of the asteroid that exploded above the Tunguska River in Siberia in
1908, flattening a vast tract of forest.
Tholen said that 1998 DK36 posed no apparent threat to Earth, but that an
asteroid orbit entirely within Earth's orbit opened the possibility that dangerous
asteroids might exist where astronomers did not normally look for them.
"All other efforts to discover asteroids on a collision course with the Earth are
being directed at a region of the sky almost opposite the sun," Tholen said. "The
significance of this discovery is that we would have otherwise never found this
new asteroid because it apparently doesn't travel to that region of the sky."
But Dr. Gareth Williams of the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams in
Cambridge, Mass., cast doubt on the assertion that the asteroid orbits the sun
entirely within Earth's orbit.
"That orbital calculation was based on just two brief observations of the object,
one lasting seven minutes on the night of Feb. 23, and the other on Feb. 24 for
four minutes," Williams said. "Of the solutions we plotted, some showed the
asteroid's orbit to be entirely within the Earth's orbit, but others showed part of
the orbit outside the Earth's orbit."
Tracking the asteroid, which was on the far side of the sun, was difficult using
the Mauna Kea telescope, Williams said, because of its angular proximity to the
sun; only a few minutes were available for observations. He said the
announcement about the asteroid "was a bit premature."
In any case, Tholen said, "1998 DK36 is nothing to lose sleep over. It's the ones
we haven't found that are of concern."
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Regards,
Jay Respler
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