SPACE – A user has found a ‘huge asteroid’ while
scanning the virtual heavens using Googly Sky. Youtube user
planetkrejci, who has investigated other anomalies on NASA pictures,
claims the object – found using the Google website which transports the
heavens to desktop computers and smartphones – is an asteroid which is
heading towards Earth. He says the asteroid – which, if real, has not
been spotted by other scientists or astronomers – has only appeared
recently on Google Sky, which receives updated images every few months.
Announcing his find on YouTube, he says the black object, mottled with
green spots, is so clear that it must be within the solar system. The
user had been exploring the region a few months earlier, and had
‘bookmarked’ a spot just to the left of the asteroid – so he is certain
the object was not there previously. One thing that planekrejci does not
substantiate is his claim that the object is moving towards the Earth,
as it is not apparent how this calculation could be obtained without
more information than the image provides. However, if planetkrejci has
found a new object, it will be quite an achievement for an earth-bound
Internet user to discover a new object in our solar system before NASA
or other observatories. The object is easy to find on Google Sky, by
typing in the co-ordinates 5h 11m 33.74s -12 50′ 30.09″ – although
conspiracy theorists might read something into the fact that the search
function on Google Sky is currently down. –Daily Mail
No official word from NASA yet on this Youtuber’s findings. We’ll keep you posted…
Close-up: The object certainly looks like an asteroid – which seems to be spotted with green flecks.
Announcing his find on YouTube, he says the black object, mottled
with green spots, is so clear that it must be within the solar system.
The user had been exploring the region a few months earlier, and had
‘bookmarked’ a spot just to the left of the asteroid – so he is certain
the object was not there previously.
There are other explanations – this could be a simple technical glitch,
either on Google Sky’s end or within the original photograph.
The earthbound Google Maps regularly has glitches where pictures have been incorrectly sewn together.
In context: The apparent clarity of the ‘asteroid’ implies it is close, certainly within our solar system.
Earth threatened by glowing green asteroid?
By Jon Voisey, Universe Today
The Daily Mail is reporting that a youtube user has found a strange object
while poking around in Google Sky. It looks suspiciously like a glowing
green asteroid and he claims it’s heading right for us. But before we call in the experts, let’s do a little bit of critical analysis on our own.
First off, the image raises alarm bells because of the apparent size
of the object. Without knowing how far away it may be, it’s hard to say
how large it would actually be, but we can put some limits on it. I
looked up the region on Aladin and
the angular distance between the two stars just to the upper right of
the object is 1 arc minute. The object seems to be about that size, so
we can use that as a baseline.
Assuming that the object was somewhere in the vicinity of Pluto
(roughly 6 billion km), doing a bit of quick geometry means the object
would be somewhere around 580,000 km. To put that in context, that’s
about 40% the diameter of the Sun. If that were the case, this wouldn’t
be an asteroid, it would be a small star. The funny thing about stars is
that they tend to be somewhat bright and a lot more round. So that
rules out that extreme.
2011
MD on Monday, June 27, 2011 at 09:30 UTC with RGB filter. Credit:
Ernesto Guido, Nick Howes and Giovanni Sostero at the Faulkes Telescope
South.
But what if it were very close? At the distance of the moon, that
would mean the object would be about 300 km in diameter which would make
this thing slightly smaller than the largest asteroid, Ceres. However,
this raises another issue: With that much mass, the object should still
be pretty round. Additionally, with such a size and distance, it would
be very bright. And it’s not.
Even closer we run into additional issues. Astronomical images aren’t
taken as a single color image. Images like this are taken in 3 filters
(RGB) and then combined to make a color image. If the object is nearby,
it moves from image to image, showing up in the final image in 3 places,
each as a different color. For example, here’s an image of 2011 MD
illustrating the effect. Given the object in question doesn’t have this
tri-color separation going on, it can’t be nearby.
So this has pretty much ruled out anything anywhere in our solar
system. If it’s close, it should have color issues and be bright. If
it’s far, it’s too massive to have been missed. Outside of our solar
system and it wouldn’t have any apparent motion and should be visible in
other images. And it’s not.
In fact, searching the various databases from which Google Sky draws its data (SDSS, DSS, HST, IRAS, and WMAP), the killer asteroid doesn’t appear at all. Thus, it would seem that this object is nothing more than a technical glitch introduced by Google’s stitching together of images. Sorry conspiracy theorists. No Planet X or Nibiru out there this time!
Source: Universe Today
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