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Huge asteroid passes Earth Monday, get out telescopes, binoculars

Telescope, binoculars to see asteroid

The asteroid, named ‘2004 BL86’ is on an orbit about 200 years long, which means it’s not coming this way again for, well, about 200 years. Further, there won’t be another asteroid this big to pass by us again until ‘1999 AN10’ zips by in 2027.

It will be 745,000 miles (1.2 million km.) away when it passes, 3 times the distance to the Moon, so yeah, you’ll need a telescope (or strong binoculars) but it is considered a close pass. Detlef Koschny of the ‘Near Earth Object’ program said “…the best way to observe it is with a high-sensitive video camera hooked to a telelens or small telescope.”

It you have neither telescope, powerful binoculars there’s an online telescope it can be viewed on. It passes closest to Earth in the late morning Monday.

Don Yeomans of NASA said they do not have images of it yet but will get some now. “It’s a relatively close approach by a relatively large asteroid,” Yeomans said. “So it provides us a unique opportunity to observe and learn more.”

Asteroids and Earth

Astronomers say it is highly unlikely this asteroid will impact Earth, though down the road such a thing is possible. It was a massive one, a ten-kilometer asteroid, that was responsible for the destruction on Earth that included the killing off of dinosaurs.

That was 65 million years ago when the Chicxulub asteroid hit with 100 million megatons of force in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The change caused to the climate by the dust released into the air killed almost 50 percent of species then living on Earth.

“Asteroids are something special,” NASA’s Yeomans writes. “Not only did asteroids provide Earth with the building blocks of life and much of its water, but in the future, they will become valuable resources for mineral ores and other vital natural resources.

“They will also become the fueling stops for humanity as we continue to explore our solar system. There is something about asteroids that makes me want to look up.”

Looking up is something we’ll all have a chance to do Monday night.

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