Asteroid YU55 headed toward Earth: First images released

[The Straight Story]

Asteroid YU55 headed toward Earth: First images released

An asteroid about the size of an aircraft carrier was hurtling toward us Monday night, following an orbit that will take it within 201,700 miles of Earth, as measured from the center of the planet.

As has been much reported, that's closer to us than the moon is.

Scientists at NASA have been tracking the asteroid, named YU55, on a daily basis since Friday. On Monday, at 11:45 a.m. Pacific, they took the above picture of the asteroid using a 70-meter radio telescope.

The photo, shot from NASA's Deep Space Network in Goldstone, Calif., might be a little more exciting if it were a bit less pixelated. But we can forgive the fuzziness -- after all, the asteroid was at 3.6 lunar distances, which is about 860,000 miles, from Earth when the image was taken.





http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/asteroid-yu55-to-fly-close-to-earth-on-tuesday-first-images-released.html

[neverforget]

1. The Facehuggers from Alien gave me nightmares.

But the asteroid flyby is cool!

[Gold Metal Flake]

2. Asteroid YU55. It's going places!

Your back yard, for example.

[FarCenter]

3. Closer than the moon but not by much; Lunar orbit radius is about 235,000 miles

[kentuck]

4. Tomorrow morning...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2244202

[sufrommich]

5. Will this be Hale-Bopp like viewing? In other words big and

bright to the naked eye?