Join international leaders in asteroid and comet research at the University of Central Florida in Orlando for a special “viewing party” that will climax with an exclusive look at the asteroid 2012 DA14 zipping between Earth and orbiting communication satellites — the closest fly by in recorded history.
Experts say there is no chance the asteroid will hit Earth, this time. NASA has identified more than 4,700 as potential threats to Earth, some as big as 16 football fields, so there’s a need to know more about them. Three space agencies — including NASA — are planning missions to collect samples from asteroids in the next few year.
Should an asteroid be detected on a collision course with Earth, it will be critical to know its composition and structure in order to deflect it. The impact of a small asteroid like DA 14 would equal the destructive power of an atomic bomb. A larger asteroid could be catastrophic.
Dr. Michael F. A’Hearn, Dr. Harold Reitsema and UCF Professors Humberto Campins and Daniel Britt will talks about the reality and myths of these ancient rocks leading up to a LIVE feed of the fly-by from telescopes in Spain, where astronomers first discovered this asteroid.
For more information please visit,
http://www.cos.ucf.edu/asteroid/ Read More