Date: March 29, 2012

Title: Near Earth Object 2012 DA14

Podcasters: Mat Kaplan

Organization: The Planetary Society

Links: National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Arecibo Observatory): http://www.naic.edu/
The Planetary Society: http://planetary.org
Planetary Radio Talks With Co-Discoverer of Near Earth Object 2012 DA14: http://www.planetary.org/radio/show/00000488/
NASA Near Earth Object Program on 2012 DA14: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news174.html
Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grant Program: http://planetary.org/programs/projects/neo_grants/s

Description: It has only been a few weeks since La Sagra Observatory in southern Spain announced its latest discovery of a Near Earth Object or NEO. This one, given the name 2012 DA14, will visit Earth again in less than a year. Fortunately, astronomers have determined that the roughly 50-meter space rock will not impact our planet, but it will pass well within the orbits of geosynchronous satellites. Dr. Bruce Betts and Mat Kaplan of the Planetary Society tell the fascinating story behind the asteroid, and discuss why it’s so important for us to find and track NEOs.

Bio: Mat Kaplan is the Planetary Society’s Media Producer. He has also hosted and produced Planetary Radio, the Society’s award-winning weekly podcast and public radio series about space exploration and development, for nine years. The show presents the men and women who are leading our push into the final frontier, along with regular contributions from Bruce Betts, Emily Lakdawalla, and Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye the Science Guy. Catch it on a local radio station, Sirius XM Satellite Radio, in the iTunes Store, or at http://planetary.org/radio . With this return to 365 Days, Mat and the Society kickoff a monthly contribution on the last Thursday of each month in 2012. (With the exception of August, when it will be heard on Thursday the 23rd.)

Sponsor: This episode of the “365 days of Astronomy” is sponsored by — NO ONE! Please consider sponsoring a day or two in 2012 so we can continue to bring you daily “infotainment”.

Transcript:

3-29-12 365 Days of Astronomy
Near Earth Object 2012 DA14 Transcript

Mat Kaplan: Welcome to this episode of 365 Days of Astronomy everyone. I’m Mat Kaplan. Among other things, I am the producer and host of Planetary Radio at the Planetary Society. That’s our weekly public radio series and podcast. It’s also on Sirius XM. You can find it at planetary.org or, even more specifically, planetary.org/radio. Every week we talk to somebody who’s leading our exploration of the final frontier. We also talk every week with my guest on this edition of 365 Days. That’s Bruce Betts, who is the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. It is Dr. Bruce Betts. He is an astronomer and planetary scientist, and in a very good position to talk to us about our topic today, which happens to be one that Bruce and I discovered, to our surprise, no one had yet spoken of on 365 Days. Bruce, welcome, first of all.

Bruce Betts: Good to be here, Mat. Thanks.

M: Tell us about this space rock discovered as it was leaving the vicinity of our planet, but apparently is coming back very soon.

B: It is indeed. This is 2012 DA14—typical name applied to newly-discovered rocks in space. This one’s about 45 to 50 meters in diameter, but what makes it really, really interesting is it will be headed back by Earth on February 15, 2013. Not just by Earth, but really close. It will come well within the orbit of geosynchronous communications satellites. It will pass about 20,000, 21,000 kilometers above the surface of the Earth as it goes zipping by, and will provide a great opportunity for telescopic studies, radar studies, and a variety of other studies. It is yet another wake-up call that we live in a cosmic shooting gallery.

M: That is so close, I think…I could get a rash, that’s so close.

B: (Laughs) The little-known Near Earth Asteroid rash, yes.

M: I’ll get some salve, I guess. Listen, how do we know that this thing is going to be so close, and much more importantly, how do we know that it’s not going to get a lot closer, like, zero kilometers from our planet.

B: Ah, we’re just guessin’, Mat. We have no clue.

M: (Laughs) Okay! Thanks so much, Bruce.

B: I just thought it would make you feel better. No, no, no, no, lest that be taken as serious—although I don’t really think it will be by this audience. We know because after the discovery…the discovery tells you there’s a rock. And then what’s important is getting lots of follow-up observations so that you can put together an orbital track. And once you have lots of observations you can connect the dots, put it into your three dimensional connecting the dots software, and generate an orbit. And the more observations you get over time, the smaller your errors become on the orbit. So the good news for this is they got enough follow-up–both from the original discoverers, as well as other observatories around the world–that they were able to get a good orbital prediction. So we know it definitely will NOT impact the Earth in 2013, or for the foreseeable future, though it gets fuzzier as you get many, many, many years out. Whether it comes by at 20,000 kilometers or 21,000 kilometers, that part’s a little uncertain. What we know is it’s not coming by at zero.

M: Well, that’s reassuring. But what will happen? I mean, its orbit is going to be affected as it makes this close flyby of the Earth.

B: Yes! It will be strongly affected by the gravitational influence of the Earth. And in fact, that’s why it’s really good that we know it’s coming by and can monitor it carefully and get lots of tracking points to refine the orbit, because exactly how much it’s affected will vary depending on whether it does come by exactly at 20,000 kilometers or 21. That affects the rest of its orbit for many years and decades into the future. So we’ll have a good idea after all the observations next year of exactly what its plan is for the coming decades.

M: Very quickly, is this one of those rocks that is big enough that we wouldn’t to meet up with it in a dark alley?

B: We do NOT want to meet up with this rock in a dark alley. It is decidedly unfriendly. It’s one of those pesky little “regional disaster” rocks, roughly equivalent to the Tunguska event in 1908 which fortunately hit over Siberia. That had an air burst and flattened 2,000 square kilometers of forest. That’s the type of destruction that we would see from this, but would not necessarily get lucky enough that it would hit in an uninhabited part of Siberia. So we’re psyched! We’re really glad this isn’t hitting.

M: Tell us, as we wrap up, about the people who made this very interesting discovery.

B: It was discovered by La Sagra Observatory, which operates out of southern Spain, and in particular by a team that includes Jaime Nomen. The Planetary Society is actually very excited because Jaime Nomen and the team was the recipient of one of our 2010 Shoemaker NEO grant awards. They specifically applied and got approved to get a new camera. Why? Because they wanted better sensitivity, of course, so they could see smaller, darker objects, AND they wanted faster readout times so they could actually go hunting for objects that were flying by fairly close to Earth at the time of discovery. So they were moving a lot across the sky during the night and from one night to the next. And that’s exactly what this object was, and that’s exactly why they found it, and why it was missed by the very large, professional surveys mostly run out of the US.

M: Fascinating story, and we actually talked with Jaime Nomen about this a couple of weeks ago. It was the March 12 or the week of March 12 Planetary Radio, which you can find at planetary.org/radio. Just clicke the Program Archives link there. You can hear from Jaime himself and a little bit more of Bruce telling us about this Near Earth Object recently discovered and soon to return to our planet. Bruce, thank you so much.

B: Thank you, Mat!

M: Bruce Betts is the Director of Projects for the Planetary Society. He’s going back to those projects, now. But we might just end up talking to him again here on 365 Days of Astronomy. I will be back each last Thursday of each month during 2012, so you’ll be hearing from me again on the 26th of April. Until then, everybody, clear skies.

End of podcast:

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