Recently, an asteroid made a close pass (in astronomical terms) by Earth. It was newly discovered and it is probable that it will return in 2032, although there is just a really small chance that it will crash the Earth or even create an impact crater according to NASA. It is said that it is a one in 63,000 chance that it will hit Earth.
The asteroid is known as 2013 TV135. It passed 4.2 million miles or 6.7 million km from Earth this past Wednesday according to the U.S. Space Agency.
Astronomers from the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Ukraine discovered it on October 8th.
Don Yeomans who is the manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California said "To put it another way, that puts the current probability of no impact in 2032 at about 99.998 percent."
More information about the asteroid is being presented next week.
They believe the asteroid is 1,300 feet in size.
The "Spaceguard" or the Near-Earth Object Observation Program tracks asteroids and comets that go by Earth to see if any could cause harm to be able to find a solution and avoid a natural catastrophe.
This asteroid is one of the 10,332 near-Earth objects that have been identified so far.
MLA Citation:
"Newly Discovered Asteroid Missed Earth but Will Return in 2032." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 29 Apr.
0000. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. http://news.yahoo.com/newly-discovered-asteroid-missed-earth- return-2032-193217461.html.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Biggest Star Ever Found Is Ripping Apart
The biggest star ever found by scientists is called the W26. It is even bigger tan the sun! This star is
1,500 times wider than the sun. The star is nearly dying, since the bigger the star, the faster they die.
Officials with the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in the U.K. said in a statement. "Some of the
most massive stars have lifetimes of less than a few million years before they exhaust their nuclear
fuel and explode as supernovas. At the very ends of their lives these stars become highly unstable and
eject a considerable amount of material from their outer envelopes."
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Survey Telescope (VST) in Chile is
being used by astronomers to study the Westerlund 1, a large cluster of stars in the Milky Way
Galaxy about 16,000 light years from Earth. W26 is one of the stars in this collection of stars.
The W26 is surrounded by a cloud of hydrogen which is the first "ionized nebula" found around one of those stars.
MLA Citation:
Miriam Kramer, Staff. "Biggest Star Ever Found Is Ripping Apart." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 30
Oct. 0000. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. <http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-star-ever-found-ripping-apart-photo-135019188.html>.
1,500 times wider than the sun. The star is nearly dying, since the bigger the star, the faster they die.
Officials with the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in the U.K. said in a statement. "Some of the
most massive stars have lifetimes of less than a few million years before they exhaust their nuclear
fuel and explode as supernovas. At the very ends of their lives these stars become highly unstable and
eject a considerable amount of material from their outer envelopes."
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Survey Telescope (VST) in Chile is
being used by astronomers to study the Westerlund 1, a large cluster of stars in the Milky Way
Galaxy about 16,000 light years from Earth. W26 is one of the stars in this collection of stars.
The W26 is surrounded by a cloud of hydrogen which is the first "ionized nebula" found around one of those stars.
MLA Citation:
Miriam Kramer, Staff. "Biggest Star Ever Found Is Ripping Apart." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 30
Oct. 0000. Web. 17 Oct. 2013. <http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-star-ever-found-ripping-apart-photo-135019188.html>.
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