Asteroid Will Skim By Earth Days Before Christmas: It Is ‘Potentially Hazardous’

An asteroid called 3200 Phaethon will skim past the Earth just days before many will celebrate with Christmas festivities. The three-mile-wide asteroid is expected to miss the Earth, but it’s still labeled as “potentially hazardous,” and for good reasons.

With a diameter of about 3 miles, the asteroid named 3200 Phaethon (after the Greek demi-god who, according to legend, nearly set the Earth on fire) is classified as “potentially hazardous” by the Minor Planet Center. The asteroid will pass within 6.5 million miles of the Earth, which is relatively close in space terms, but still around 27 times the distance of the moon. Much closer flybys have occurred in the very recent past.

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are planning to use the opportunity to obtain a detailed 3D model of the asteroid, which has a particularly irregular shape. First detected in December 2007, 3200 Phaethon is widely thought to be the parent body for the Geminid meteor shower, which is due to peak this year on the night of December 13. This would make the Geminids one of only two major meteor showers not originating from a comet; the other being the Quadrantids in January.

The main difference between asteroids and comets is their composition. Asteroids are made up of metals and rocky material, while comets are made up of ice, dust and rocky material. Comets which approach the Sun lose material with each orbit because some of their ice melts and vaporizes to form a tail.

But the real question is will anyone be able to see the asteroid’s close approach to our planet. According to NASA, 3200 Phaethon will be visible in small telescopes for experienced observers in areas with dark skies. It is potentially detectable for three weeks but will be at its brightest between December 11 and 21. If you don’t see the asteroid itself, be sure to look out for the Geminid meteor shower, which is set to provide a spectacular show over the course of 10 nights in December, with as many as 100 shooting stars every hour.

NASA Astronauts Respond To Plan To ‘Prove Earth Is Flat’

If you’ve spent any time on the internet in the past few years, you would know that there is a growing movement of human beings who firmly believe that the Earth is flat. One of those humans, rapper B.o.B, made headlines last week when he created a GoFundMe page to finance his project which he believes will prove the Earth is flat, but astronauts have already responded.

When the astronauts caught wind of rapper B.o.B’s plan they responded to his asinine idea brilliantly. B.o.B’s idea was to “send a satellite as far into space as possible” to take a photo of the Earth, which he believes will look like a map.

The cities in the background are approx. 16miles apart… where is the curve ? please explain this pic.twitter.com/YCJVBdOWX7

— B.o.B (@bobatl) January 25, 2016

Since B.o.B is obviously not a scientist and has a very limited understanding of mathematics, astronauts took some time out of their day to try to save the young man some money.

I can save BoB a lot of money- The Earth is round. I flew around it. https://t.co/F7qAovPEng @bobatl @BBCWorld

— Terry Virts (@AstroTerry) September 27, 2017

Buzz Aldrin, one of the first two men to land on the moon, and the second man to actually walk on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission, then jumped in to derail the hopes of flat-earthers everywhere.

I did too. It"s called an orbit: the curved path of a celestial object around a star, planet, or moon. https://t.co/h8GQJadfxD

— Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) September 27, 2017

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly also had advice for B.o.B, as well as video evidence that the Earth is round. If he takes the 35 seconds required to watch it, he’ll see just how round the world is, and save his GoFundMe donors the $200,000 he’s asking for.

Show you the curve? Here you go @bobatl! One full orbit around Earth. Maybe donate funds raised to #PuertoRicoRelief https://t.co/bhJSXfwYXL pic.twitter.com/rFAysS2clc

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) September 27, 2017

But B.o.B wasn’t deterred with actual evidence and the eyewitness accounts of men who have actually been in Earth’s orbit.

That‘s absolutely right!

„Don‘t touch the stove, it‘s really hot!“

– „Ahhh, that must be where you keep the gold then!“

🙄

— Paul Kautz (@pkautz) September 30, 2017

No amount of evidence will convince those who have already made up their mind what they “feel” is true. No amount of factual data and mathematical analysis will be enough evidence to get people to drop deeply held but wrong beliefs, making the flat-earther, akin to religious cultists.

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Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 1 people
Date: October 4th, 2017
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

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Russia And The US Work Together To Build A Space Station In The Lunar Orbit

 Maybe all is finally forgiven in the ongoing battle to constantly turn the narrative back to the Russian election meddling, as the former Soviet Union and the United States attempt to work together to build a manned space station which orbits the moon.

Part of this long-term project to send humans to Mars, the NASA-led program will see the two countries working together to create a crewed spaceport in lunar orbit. The proposed crew-tended spaceport will orbit the moon and serve as a “gateway to deep space and the lunar surface.”

Russian and the US have agreed to put their heads together to make the new mission possible. The US space agency said earlier this year that it was exploring a program called the Deep Space Gateway, a multi-stage project to push further into the solar system.

While George W. Bush wanted to see humans on the moon again by 2020, Barack Obama scrapped that plan and focused his intention on plans to visit Mars, including a mission to test the necessary technology by capturing a boulder from the surface of an asteroid and bringing it into lunar orbit. Now with the Donald Trump at the helm, asteroid missions are no longer a top priority. The Trump administration wants to see a spaceport orbiting the moon, crewed visits to the lunar surface are once again on the menu.

Plans to return to the moon have waxed and waned depending on the US administration. NASA, however, has even bigger plans. The organization has ambitious intentions to send humans to orbit Mars by the 2030s, and subsequent plans to colonize the red planet.

On Wednesday the Russian space agency Roscosmos announced that a cooperation agreement had been signed at an astronautical congress in Adelaide.“The partners intend to develop international technical standards which will be used later, in particular to create a space station in lunar orbit,” the Russian agency said in a statement. The Russians and Americans would cooperate to build the systems needed to organise scientific missions in lunar orbit and to the surface of the moon, the agency added. “Roscosmos and Nasa have already agreed on standards for a docking unit of the future station. Taking into account the country’s extensive experience in developing docking units, the station’s future elements will be created using Russian designs.” –The Guardian

“To avoid future problems over technical cooperation, part of the standards should be unified – for a possibility for various countries to work on their craft and dock to the international lunar station,” Igor Komarov, Roscosmos’ general director was quoted as saying in the statement.

Russia and the United States also discussed using Moscow’s Proton-M and Angara rockets to help create the infrastructure of the lunar spaceport, the statement said, adding that the main works were scheduled to begin in the mid-2020s.

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Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 1 people
Date: September 27th, 2017
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Before And After Satellite Images Of Irma’s Destruction In Caribbean

A satellite image of Virgin Gorda before Hurricane Irma hit (left) and after (right)

These before and after images, taken by the Landsat 8 satellite, show plainly and clearly how destructive Hurricane Iram was to the Caribbean islands in its path.  The satellite had been busy snapping photos as a way to document the damage.

NASA has released a series of satellite imagery showing islands in the Caribbean before and after the major storm.  The photos were taken on August 25 and September 10, 2017, respectively.

The image below is of the island Barbuda both before and after the storm.  Locals and authorities in the Caribbean have said that this storm was so strong, it wiped Barbuda off the map. 

Around 90% of Barbuda’s buildings are rubble, and a majority of the island is still underwater, making it uninhabitable for the 1800 residents who before Iram ripped through, called the island home.  It didn’t fare as well as Antiqua, which is still green, meaning its tropical vegetation is still mostly in tact.

Aside from the slightly patchy cloud coverage in the post-hurricane images, the main thing you will notice is the different coloring of the land. In the images from late-August, the islands are a lush vibrant green, while the ones after the hurricane are a duller brown. This is because the hurricane’s violent 185 miles per hour (298 kilometer per hour) winds literally stripped the land of much of its tropical vegetation. Additionally, salt spray spat up by the storm can damage the leaves still on the trees. –IFLScience

But that may not be the only major difference.  The color of the ocean water appears to be a little more on the light side. But that’s most likely due to some differences in the sea’s surface. Choppier waters are less smooth on the surface and therefore reflect less light, so they will appear to be darker.

The image above, of the British Virgin Islands, shows that this section of the Caribbean had also undergone some major damage.  NASA Earth Observatory says that these islands took a battering from the hurricane.  Among the widespread looting and damage caused to property, over 100 prisoners escaped when Hurricane Irma hit the British Virgin Islands.

Many experts say that it will take months, and perhaps even years, to undo the damage done to the Virgin Islands during Hurrican Irma.

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Author: Mac Slavo
Views: Read by 358 people
Date: September 14th, 2017
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