Welp, there goes another apocalyptic prophecy — this one grounded in reality, mind, but it means we can scrub the 2040 doomsday off our calendar.
Earlier in 2012 only a few observations of AG5 could be made before it got too close to the Sun to see. Those allowed the crude estimate of where it would be in 2040, and that big fuzzy volume of space included the Earth.
However, new observations taken with the monster Gemini telescope in Hawaii allowed a far better orbit to be calculated. The path of the asteroid in 2040 was found, and now clearly does not include the Earth. It will be a clean miss, by about 900,000 kilometers (550,000 miles). This is more than twice the distance to the Moon, if that helps.
With this new calculation, we have little to worry about in 2040. Though, it seems, humanity does love a doomsday. I don’t expect this will truly dissuade people who want another hit of that doomsday high.
Hat tip to Phil Plait in his new digs at Slate.
9 comments
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barklikeadog
December 26, 2012 at 2:42 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Whew, my balls were startin’ to sweat about that one….
shouldbeworking
December 26, 2012 at 3:58 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Bah, nothing ever exciting happens on this planet anymore.
Gregory in Seattle
December 26, 2012 at 4:05 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dr. Plait’s blog is at http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy.html. You forgot the extension.
Jason Thibeault
December 26, 2012 at 4:25 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Drat, I used the prior link and cut it so I wouldn’t have to copy/paste again. Well that’s nice. Great job Slate. :p
postman
December 26, 2012 at 5:15 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I think you misused the term keyhole. Also, not really big enough to cause an apocalypse. Great disaster sure but nothing in a global scale.
Jason Thibeault
December 26, 2012 at 5:24 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not sure that I did. 2011 AG5 was apparently possibly going to hit a keyhole area in passing Earth this year where, if it passed through that area, in 2040 it would definitely hit Earth. Sure, it’d be a SMALL apocalypse, but it would have been an apocalypse nonetheless. (For local values of apocalypse.)
postman
December 26, 2012 at 6:00 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nicely put. :)
As for the keyhole thing, maybe. I am no astronomer after all.
Rodney Nelson
December 26, 2012 at 6:06 pm CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I think people would notice if 2011 AG5 would hit the Earth. As Phil Plait explained:
birgerjohansson
December 27, 2012 at 10:10 am CDT (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Can we at least carve off a tiny bit of it and let the butterfly effect bring it near Earth? It would be nice to park it in lunar orbit (or in Earth orbit at a safe altitude) as a soruce of raw material for orbital factories.