Astronomers prepare for an asteroid fly-by on November 8, using the Earth as the spacecraft
Astronomers prepare for an asteroid fly-by on November 8, using the Earth as the spacecraft.
Large enough to cause regional devastation if it were to hit the Earth, 2005 YU55 is the closest pass by an asteroid this big since 1976, and there won’t be another until 2028. The near miss provides an unparallelled opportunity for radar, optical and infrared observations of a mysterious charcoal-black world similar to the type of asteroid that astronauts may one day set foot on.
Radar bonanza “It’s a bit like a spacecraft fly-by with the Earth being the spacecraft,” says astronomer Don Yeomans at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “It’s going to be an extraordinary target for radar.”
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Astronomers prepare for an asteroid fly-by on November 8, using the Earth as the spacecraft.
Large enough to cause regional devastation if it were to hit the Earth, 2005 YU55 is the closest pass by an asteroid this big since 1976, and there won’t be another until 2028. The near miss provides an unparallelled opportunity for radar, optical and infrared observations of a mysterious charcoal-black world similar to the type of asteroid that astronauts may one day set foot on.
Radar bonanza “It’s a bit like a spacecraft fly-by with the Earth being the spacecraft,” says astronomer Don Yeomans at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. “It’s going to be an extraordinary target for radar.”
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
The excerpt mentions a manned expedition to an asteroid, which the full article blandly projects as taking place in the 2020s. Does anybody even CARE about going to an asteroid? Paul Spudis recently did a three-part piece for AIR & SPACE that pretty well demolished the rationale for an asteroid mission. Weeks of travel time, a day or two there before having to head back home, little likelihood of finding anything new or important that robot probes wouldn’t have long since discovered. This is unicorns and rainbows stuff, promising the space community something down the road (long after this administration would have to start paying for it) in exchange for killing a return to the Moon any time soon, which is probably the main near-term space mission that would make any kind of sense. But there was Lori Garver the other week brightly chirping about how in the sweet bye and bye there would be an international mission led by the US to an asteroid, and that’s supposed to set the space buffs’ propellor beanies spinning in anticipation…
Have to agree – at least a manned Lunar or Mars mission could be justified on the grounds that at some point, we may want a permananet base there for various reasons, but there’s never going to be a “pemanent base” on any asteroid! So there’s absolutely nothing to be gained by humans going there that we couldn’t get with an unmanned probe. It would just be a waste of whatever precious & dwindling funds are available to do something more practical & meaningful in manned spaceflight…