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| Asteroid 2005 YU55, the latest death from the sky. (image by NASA/Cornell/Arecibo (cropped by user) (Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech) |
Comet Elenin broke up before it reached us—though it was never coming all that close to begin with. Nibiru exists only in the fevered imaginations of true believers and conspiracy theorists. And as it turns out, there aren't nearly as many asteroids out there menacing us as we thought. Does that mean we've run out of death-from-the-sky stories?
Thankfully, no!
By Linda Felaco
On November 8, a 400-meter-wide asteroid called 2005 YU55 will barrel past Earth within just a few hundred thousand kilometers. This flyby will give astronomers and the public alike a rare look at what scientists call near-Earth objects. Satellite data are illustrating the diversity of such rocks in orbits dangerously close to our planet. What do astronomers know about the abundance and behavior of near-Earth objects? What do scientists expect to learn from 2005 YU55's flyby? And what dangers do these space rocks pose to human civilization?
At 3 p.m. EDT on Thursday, November 3, ScienceLive will hold a live chat about near-Earth objects with Don Yeomans of NASA and Scott Fisher, program director in the Division of Astronomical Sciences at the National Science Foundation.
You can leave your questions in the comment box before the chat starts. The chat page also has links that let you save the event to your Yahoo or Google calendar. A transcript of the chat will be available afterward if you miss it live.