The Asteroid/Comet Connection's
daily news journal about
asteroids, comets, and meteors

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – meteor news, bits & pieces
• Risk monitoring – JPL & NEODyS have posted the Earth-buzzing 2004 OD4
  panel 2 – JPL has removed 2004 MP7

Cover: Gordon Garradd, who was running the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) 0.5m Uppsala Schmidt Telescope on July 13th when 2004 NN8 was discovered, later helped confirm this unusual object from home, at his Loomberah Observatory, as seen in this animation of the four positions he reported the next night (less than 23 hours from discovery). He notes that he stacked his four 50-second exposures and saw no coma. For more about 2004 NN8, see news Friday and Saturday.

Meteor news:  The Scotsman has an article today about how a group led by a geologist is campaigning against building a windfarm in the Gargunnock hills using unconfirmed claims that the Loch Leven structure is an impact site with “asteroid-derived rocks” containing osmium. The group agues that the construction disturbance would poison the water supply and air with osmium tetroxide.

Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico has temporarily posted imagery of a bright meteor caught at 3:27am today (JPEG, 656Kb movie, west is left and north is up).

Bits & pieces:  The Honolulu Advertiser has an AP wire story today telling that a first-ever University of Hawaii master plan, in agreement with native Hawaiian cultural groups, will allow new telescopes “only on sites that have already been developed” on Haleakala on the island of Maui. This is the location of the coming Pan-STARRS prototype 1.8m telescope (and later possibly all four or five telescopes), the Faulkes robotic

educational 2m telescope, and the U.S. Air Force telescopes that NEAT has used.

Some news outlets have overstated Don Quixote NEO concept mission news. A July 17th piece leads with, “European space bosses will launch a missile strike on an asteroid.” Others state that the European Space Agency has assigned it high priority. To be precise, 1) Don Quixote is not an ESA proposal, but was one of many submitted at ESA invitation, and one of six minimally funded two years ago for further study (news thread). 2) Last week's actual news was that, not ESA but an advisory committee, had recommended that Don Quixote be given priority over the other five proposals. 3) There is no ESA funding or other commitment. ESA's own news release indicates that moving forward will require support from outside ESA and Europe, and it quotes committee chair Alan Harris as to when such a mission might happen:

“ When we do actually find a hazardous asteroid, you could imagine a Don Quijote-type mission as a precursor to a mitigation mission. It will tell us how the target responds to an impact and will help us to develop a much more effective mitigation mission. ”

Risk monitoring 19 July

2004 OD4 caught at 5 LD this morning by Great Shefford Observatory, moving 5.1"/min. in P.A. 317°, mag. 19.6.

At last check today, Monday, there is no news about observing objects in recent view that have impact solutions, but there was big news overnight with the announcement of the discovery of small object 2004 OD4.

With a time stamp of 0152 UTC, just before 10pm last evening at the Minor Planet Center (MPC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, MPEC 2004-O15 announced the discovery of 2004 OD4 at 0822 UTC on Saturday by LINEAR in New Mexico, which picked it up again 24 hours later. It was posted to the MPC NEO Confirmation Page (NEOCP) after 1830 UTC Saturday, and Peter Birtwhistle at Great Shefford Observatory in England caught it very early this morning, reporting positions during 0013-0033 UTC. He tells on his 2004 OD4 page today that the MPC had the discovery MPEC out 40 minutes after he sent his data.

Kyle Smalley comments in the MPEC that 2004 OD4 “passed 0.0011 AU from Earth on July 16.25 UT.” That's just under 43% of the distance between the Earth and Moon at around 0600 on Friday, about 22.5 hours before discovery. Today the MPC is showing 0.00111 AU at 2004 July 16.22 (about 0515 UTC), which

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makes this the ninth closest observed flyby and second closest this year.

The JPL NEO Program office posted 2004 OD4 at some time before 10pm in Pasadena (between 0410 and 0500 UTC) with one very low-rated impact solution in the year 2067. And today in Pisa, NEODyS posted this object with three very low-rated solutions, two in 2067 and one in 2069. All these solutions, which are likely to removed with further observation, are for 16-17 July.

With an MPC initial calculation of absolute magnitude (brightness) H=26.7, 2004 OD4 is the fifth largest object observed to come this close or closer in an Earth flyby. From a standard conversion formula, it appears to be on the order of 15 meters/yards wide. JPL, which has H=26.8, is showing an estimate of 10 meters.

Note: A/CC first posted news of 2004 OD4 at 0424 UTC today, and updated at 0503 UTC with news that JPL had listed this object with an impact risk assessment.

A screen shot by Pasquale Tricario using ORSA illustrates the encounter of 2004 OD4 with the Earth-Moon system, with the intruder passing underneath the orbit of the Moon, which was on the other side of Earth at the time. Its closest approach to the Moon was 0.00284 AU (1.1 LD) at July 16.04 (about 0100 UTC). The observer's position is 1.21741 LD from the Earth in this perspective view.

Risk monitoring update:  JPL has removed 2004 MP7, which may be the result of receiving observations ahead of tomorrow's Daily Orbit Update MPEC. The MPC Last Observation page is showing that MP7 was caught today with the Australian National University 1m telescope.