Elenin fails to perturb a small asteroid at 0.002 AUs distance – Astronut
Here is the flipside to all the comet Elenin doom and gloom. Astronut observed that Elenin failed to perturb a small asteroid at 0.002 AUs distance. This is good news and better hope that nothing bad will happen to the earth come September 26 and November 22, 2011.
On May 20th (Friday), C/2010 X1 (Elenin) passed within 0.002 AUs of an asteroid in the asteroid belt known as 1999 RQ176 (asteroid number 74732). The name designates when it was found and in what order. This asteroid is several magnitudes dimmer than Elenin itself. In order to determine if it was still where it should be after the encounter, I purchased telescope time from a civilian telescope in the Canary Islands.
As expected, it’s faint as hell, and this was with a telescope as large as GLP’s new main scope (different optical design though). First, here’s the image of 1999 RQ176. Elenin’s clearly visible on the right end of the image as well.
http://flickr.com/gp/astropics/o07ktW
The purple sheen is just due to white balance issues. Asteroid 1999 RQ176 is just barely visible. This is actually a stack of 4 exposures from the telescope, the first exposure ending at 22:34:31 GMT May 21st.
Elenin’s position was predicted to be 10h 27m 32.27s, +08d 09′ 03.5″. According to astrometry, it was detected at 10h 27m 32s, +08d 09′ 04″, well within the 2.15 arcsecond per pixel resolution of the image.
Asteroid 1999 RQ176 was predicted to be at 10h 28m 35.60s, +08d 05′ 23.1″. According to the same astrometry, it was actually detected at 10h 28m 36s, +08d 05′ 23″, again right on the money and within the resolution of the image.
Elenin failed to detectably perturb this little asteroid at all despite encountering it at a very close distance of 0.002 AUs and even pelting it with its tail as it passed between the asteroid and sun during that close approach. Here’s a simulation showing the encounter:
http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm477/ngchunter/elenin74732alignmentweb.jpg
I hope this sets some of your minds at ease. I’m well aware that some, perhaps many here, will choose to believe Elenin is an imminent threat to earth no matter what, but if you’re willing to look you’ll see it’s really just a harmless minor comet.
from http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1500742/pg1