Susan Booth
Staff Writer
An asteroid roughly the same size as the one that blew up over Russia last year will be somewhere within the orbit of the moon on Wednesday. Astronomers have assured everyone that there is no chance that it will hit us. But, if you’re lucky, you can watch its progress online!
The rock in question is known as 2014 DX110 is scheduled to make a close approach at around 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, at a distance of around 216,000 miles (345,600 kilometers), or at least 90 percent of the moon’s orbital distance.
The passing of this asteroid may be at least 60 to 140 feet (19 to 43 meters) wide. Sixty feet is the total estimated width of the asteroid that broke into pieces at 20 miles (30 kilometers) above Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15, 2013, resulting in the injuring of more than hundreds of innocent bystanders. The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0 out of Italy will be airing a webcast at 3:30 pm ET.
Slooh.com will also be among many others who will be trying to track the asteroid, using its telescope located in the Canary Islands, which will start at 4pm ET. The live feed will not only be broadcast through their website, but their Ipad app, as well. Slooh‘s Patrick Paolucci said: “There is a high probability we will not capture the asteroid during the broadcast, due to uncertainties about the asteroid’s position.” Similar uncertainties managed to foil Slooh’s effort last month, when they tried to find a different asteroid known as 200 EM26, or “Moby Dick.”
Paul Cox, Slooh’s host and observatory director, said that his company plans on tracking other asteroids that are near Earth during any close encounters. Cox said “As we’ve seen with Moby Dick, all the effort that went into its discovery is worthless unless follow-up observations are made to accurately determine their orbits for the future.”
With that in mind, Slooh will attempt to try once more, using a different asteroid this time. The Asteroid known as 2014 CU13, which is approximately 390 to 850 feet wide (120 to 260 meters) wide, is due to pass sometime within the eight lunar distances of Earth this coming Tuesday.
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