And I doubt you will have anyone argue that here. Funding of NEO programmes is woefully subpar, but their importance is enormous. After all, the likelihood of a significant impact is 1.0 - it's not if, but when.

However, there needs to be a balance against the doomsayers on boards like GLP, who see global destruction around every corner. The Earth is not in imminent danger of being struck by TU24, which is the topic at hand. In fact, of all the known potential impactors, we have only 2 registered at Level 1 (on a scale of 1-10) on the Torino measure.

Does this mean we can sit back and relax? No. But does it mean that we should all run around like headless chooks? No, it doesn't.

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

Well, in order, there is no indication, that I am aware of, that TU24 is NiFe. It is actually extremely rare to find a chunk of NiFe, they make up a very small fraction of the meteors impacting Earth and apparently and even rarer fraction of the sizable NEO bodies.

According to this table, the relative velocity at approach should be around 9km/s.

Even though this one shouldn't be anywhere near to our atmosphere anytime soon. An object of this size and relative velocity would have to pass quite deeply into the atmosphere to cause anything more than light show.

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Iyam what Iyam

I do not know what this has to do with God Like Production. God made a perfect world (or so they say ). Is a world where asteroids are hitting planets from time to time (randomly) perfect? So let's leave away GLP and talk about the real thing.
The last numbers admited by JPL put 2007 TU24 around satelite orbit. If it goes this way at least some satelites will be knoked out and ISS is in real danger. This is if we will not have some change in results based on last minute data. Resting assured will not save you from accidents.
Do this: go to JPL's NEO page -> Close approach -> Close approach table -> Choose: NEA, Sort by nominal distance, Future only, no H limit, Ascending sort, Nominal dist. <= 5LD. Then hit Display table. You will get a list of 20 asteroids that will come less than 5 lunar distances in the forseeable future (the last oane is on year 2148). On position 16 is 2007 TU24 due 29 january 2008. 2007 VK184 and 2008 AF4 (the two Torino scale 1 asteroids) are nowhere in sight. Why? They were discovered only recently (like 2007 TU24) and the database is probably not up to date.

Werfer linked to GLP in the first post, and it's an interesting coincidence that a number of his unsupported assertions were on GLP.

If you're going to make assertions like this, please be so kind as to provide your references. From here:

http://www.heavens-above.com/orbitdi...sp?satid=25544

you can see that the ISS is, at most, 342 km from Earth. However, from this page:

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/neo_...y+Table&show=1

the minimum distance to Earth for 2007 TU24 remains at .0037 AU. An AU is 149,598,000 km. That means that 2007 TU24 will not get closer than 554,000 km from Earth, or 1,620 times as far away as the ISS. ISS is in no danger from this.

If you don't like JPL, here's a site in Europe that did their own calculation, and they show a minimum possible distance of .0037001 AU, in close agreement with JPL.

http://newton.dm.unipi.it/cgi-bin/ne...:2007TU24;main

Here's their introduction page:

http://newton.dm.unipi.it/cgi-bin/neodys/neoibo

So, can you provide any references to back up your assertions? It doesn't look good.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Yes, the Close Aproach table says .0037 but if you click on 2008 TU24 than you will see that MOID computed yesterday at Earth MOID = .00124988 AU
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2007%20TU24;orb=1
Now do your math.

As has been said here before, MOID is the minimum separation between orbits. It does not mean that the sateroid will be in that position at that time!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

SATEROID ... WoW. That must be an asteroid that will become a satelite
MOID = Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance. Until it was .0037 it was considered minimum distance between the two bodies now that it is .0012 it is minimum separation between orbits. Dream on. How about this:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/css/css_sss_newdisc.html
Catalina Sky Survey gives MOID = .00096

SATEROID ... sounds like a good name for a small irregular moon.

Except that this spelling would tend to make the "a" long, and thus it would be a "well-filled" type of body,...given the holiday feasting recently past, I would probably fit somewhere near this category myself!!

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Iyam what Iyam

Why? See the page:

Why do you feel the two brand new objects should be on that list, given that header? Do you think the new objects' orbits are known to reasonably low uncertainty? Why? (If their orbits were better known, then they almost certainly would not have such relatively high impact risks associated with them. Watch over time, as they become better studied.)

If you came here to scare people with your questions, it's not working. If you came here to learn, I'm not seeing the learning happening. What can we do to help you understand?

2007 TU24: current closest approach estimate is still 1.4 LD (lunar-distances), around 380000 -- 1.4*380000 or about 532000 -- kilometers. Today's Traffic Report:

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As a small clarification, "LD" or (average lunar distance) is a bit over 380,000 km. 1.4 LD is well over 500,000 km. The numbers don't matter too much, but I want it to be clear for others that we're talking about the same thing, whether we mention 500,000 plus km, 1.4 LD, or .0037 AU.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Nope. You are confusing two different things. The closest approach distance to Earth was and continues to be .0037 AU.

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Correct. I looked up the km equivalent and then forgot to follow through with the arithmetic.

(I'll edit the original, to keep TU24 that extra 120,000 km away.)

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I'm not trying to scare anybody. You are all grownups I think I've learned something in the process. We only have 14 day to wait. See you on January, 30th.

Not all BAUT members are grownups, but everyone has fears, and false information can cruelly feed those fears. See the article by aurelyn.

I'm glad you're learning. You had an unfortunate habit of making statements that were misleading and untrue. (Example: "This means that it is inside lunar orbit.") Maybe it was just your sources that had misled you. Be more skeptical of them.

If you were trying to learn, if you will in the future, please try to stick with the earnest questions and avoid the wild assertions. We'll all learn more that way, and enjoy life more.

I trust we won't spend the next 14 days worrying about 2007 TU24. There are way more important things that deserve our attention.

Expect so.

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TU24 being for several days within the earth's gravitational and magnetic field, is there any effect, earthquake, discharge, satellite perturbation etc that could occur?

Its actually pretty small for that to be any real concern

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Iyam what Iyam

The asteroid's gravity is to slight to significantly perturb anything except perhaps the vivid imaginations of a handful of our posters.

Expect 2007 TU24 to have less effect than the recent visitor 2008 AF3 that came almost half-lunar-distance closer to Earth a few days ago -- about 175000 km closer.

Traffic report:

That was a big nothing. At 1.44 lunar distances, 2007 TU24 will be a bigger nothing.

Another recent, closer, visitor was 2007 YS56:

Your Christmas went OK didn't it?

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No doubt there's a lot of bad astronomy in this clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2hKPY1jJwM

Not a few people seem to have a thanatoid tendency to want to die in a quick, painless, spectacular death.

What better than "death by asteroid"?!

Yes, the bad astronomy remains in that misleading video you first pimped when you started this topic, and the Bad Astronomer's comments are still just as valid: Bad Astronomy Blog: Asteroid to miss Earth January 29. Nothing's changed there.

What's changed is that, sadly, you were banned (or, I suppose that's re-banned) from BAUT, but maybe you were serious in your questions and maybe you're still reading. In any case, this topic is high in results for Web searches for "2007 TU24", so concerned people might come here, and for them, and for regulars following along, I add this update:

Also, then, what's changed is that there was a new observation of 2007 TU24 and a new computation of its orbit parameters and path. No significant change. The closest approach to Earth end of this month remains estimated at 1.44 LD (lunar distances), as above.

Traffic Report

It continues to be no near-term threat to Earth or Moon. It will come nowhere near Earth's atmosphere. Its electrical and gravitational effect of Earth or Moon will be infinitesimal, appropriate for a tiny little body at extreme distance.

For people who appreciate a second opinion, there is similar NEODys information for 2007 TU24.

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Here's a link to another forum where they discuss the same 2007 TU24 with competence:
http://www.irishastronomy.org/boards...pic.php?t=7684

Competence with the exception of your single post on the misinterpreted MOID figure from last Tuesday, in which you registered and posted the same day on that board. Do you still not understand MOID? It is NOT the measurement of closest approach to Earth. Our binary friend 01101001 has tried very patiently to explain that to you in this thread several times, as have several others, including the poster Dave Grennan on the board you linked. Do you even read the replies?

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Scienara: A rejection of reason and evidence.

Well, he did link to a thread where his misunderstanding was corrected, and similar information provided, which speaks well for his intentions.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I'm curious why he chose to add the 'with competence' remark.

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Scienara: A rejection of reason and evidence.

There's a talk radio host over here in the Uk, (James Whale) and he's putting out that something is going to hit the Earth next Monday, basically, saying it *will* happen. It seems he's sourced his info from a couple of 'conspiracy' websites.

He's putting the fear in some people. It's poor radio IMO. He's got his tongue in his cheek most of the time... i'm just not finding it funny

Thank you Van Rijn. I added "with competence" simply because it seemed to me they did that (there is no hidden message ) As to MOID I finaly got it . There is still a (pertinent, I think) question on the TU24.org site. How can MOID change without the distance between the two bodies change.

Look who's bashing tu24.org's campaign of fear: BA Blog: Repeat after me: asteroid 2007 TU24 is no danger to Earth

Go, Bad Astronomer!

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You're welcome.

It is possible for more detailed trajectory information, when projected into the future, to give different results while it has little short term effect. However, I am curious. You said in a previous post that the "MOID just changed from 0.0037 to 0.0012." Did you actually see this yourself on the site, or was that someone else's claim that you were repeating?

__________________
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

In the recent past I have attempted to inform those that state these obvious incorrect notions of doomsday that they would do better if they concentrated better when driving. Paid more attention to the foods they ingest and adopted a life stile of fitness over food intake to actually prolong their life span. As has been very clearly provided by many posters here.
This object TU 24 is not the one to be concerned about. We know where it is. Where its going and, how quickly its moving. --- IT WILL MISS. ---

The problem this sort of thing has and is doing is that we are now less tolerant of those impact event productions and want to instead just shove a pie in there face. This could be a problem... for as we all know this subject demands our attention and our very lives could depend on information gained by observing occultations, and the like. but its hard to be tolerant of such ignorance when its perceived as deliberately misleading. You all showed great tolerance and understanding to Werfer... he just was not listening.