Debate Asteroid 2012 TC4 - How comes nobody picks up on this?

[heka2015]

Asteroid 2012 TC4
Nasa Announcement ->Link

NASA scientists are excited about the upcoming close flyby of a small asteroid and plan to use its upcoming October close approach to Earth as an opportunity not only for science, but to test NASA’s network of observatories and scientists who work with planetary defense.

a small asteroid estimated to be between 30 and 100 feet (10 and 30 meters) in size. On Oct. 12, TC4 will safely fly past Earth. Even though scientists cannot yet predict exactly how close it will approach, they are certain it will come no closer than 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers) from the surface of Earth. The asteroid has been out of range of telescopes since 2012.

Scientists from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have determined that while at closest approach, asteroid 2012 TC4 will pass no closer than 4,200 miles from Earth -- it will more likely pass much farther away, as far as 170,000 miles (270,000 kilometers), or two-thirds of the distance from Earth to the moon. These calculations are based on only seven days of tracking 2012 TC4 after it was discovered on Oct. 5, 2012, by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) from Haleakala on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Further observations are needed to more precisely determine the asteroid’s orbit.

Hold on a second.
What they are trying to tell me here is it can't come nearer than 4200 miles
BUT
it will more likely be 170000 miles farther away?

I have not found a reason so far why this uncertainty in distance only occurs in the desired direction.

4200 miles. You tell that the fat kid and he uses one of his toys to take it down.
Just kidding but this looks awfully close to me.

Earth gravitation will affect this one for sure, probably did already the last time it flew by 2012 @59000 miles.
Have to look that up how much gravity would be left at that distance (inverse square?) with a hypothetical weight of the Chelyabinsk meteor.
It seems to me they knew more about that Asteroid as older the articles get you find on search engines.

One from 2015 -> Link
And of course a goodie. Life coverage of the 2012 fly-by by slooth.
Very interesting and I do not get any relaxed vibe from these guys looking at it flying by. Just listen in.

Now Nasa wants to tell me that with this exact Asteroid approaching they want to test all they got, just to test it? (the test part is the unbelievable not why they do it)

Don't get me wrong, there is information and articles out there if you look for them, but nowhere near the number of articles and hype this should make in the media.
It feels like the existing coverage dissapears in the noise of the newsstream very fast.

You cannot deny the possibilty of this one actually hitting something.
10-30 meters you say? Unknown weight, I suppose?
Imagine the Chelyabinsk meteor coming down in the wrong spot.
High density populations, nuclear reactors, unstable faults, known or unknow super calderas etc pp you name it.

In my opinion crazy to downplay the issue. Seems to work though.
Understandable? I wouldn't know if people actually will go crazy, but it is highly possible.
I am also pretty sure that this is not treated that lightly as it appears.

Chelyabinsk meteor was about 20 meters, 12000 -13000 metric tons and left really troubling results.
Looks like the asteroids making it have a tendency to explode. Tunguska would make another example of this it seems.
The infrasound the Chelyabinsk meteor created is in my opinion scary in itself.
Hard to imagine it not affecting planet earth.
The core, the tectonic plates, fault lines or whatever else there is with aversion to vibration that we know or don't know of.

The bulk of the object's energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, with a total kinetic energy before atmospheric impact estimated from infrasound and seismic measurements to be equivalent to the blast yield of a nuclear weapon in the 400–500 kiloton (about 1.4–1.8 PJ) range – 26 to 33 times as much energy as that released from the atomic bomb detonated at Hiroshima.

The infrasound waves given off by the explosions were detected by 20 monitoring stations designed to detect nuclear weapons testing run by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) Preparatory Commission, including the distant Antarctic station, some 15,000 kilometres (9,300 mi) away. The blast of the explosion was large enough to generate infrasound returns, after circling the globe, at distances up to about 85,000 kilometres (53,000 mi). Multiple arrivals involving waves that travelled twice around the globe have been identified. The meteor explosion produced the largest infrasounds ever to be recorded by the CTBTO infrasound monitoring system, which began recording in 2001,[56][57][58] so great that they reverberated around the world several times, taking over a day to dissipate.

It is not a Doomsday Asteroid i get that. But one that can actually do damage? Hell yeah.
Have you heard/read of it?
Thoughts?

 

[heka2015]

Looked into that gravity influence at 4200 miles.

Chelyabinsk meteor 12000-13000 t at the point of 4200 miles (obviously this is static)
Assuming Earth is a perfect sphere with the center at 4000 miles depth.

(4000mi / 8200mi)^2=0.2379536 | 23.79536% of weight towards earth ?!
0.2379536 x 12500t = 2974.42 t
Is that correct?

 

[TimeFlipper]

My mega powered ultra fine Laser beam will sort out that pesky asteroid..No worries! ..its history ..

 

[heka2015]

Do you have some blueprints?
Might come in handy.

 

[Harte]

An asteroid (meteoroid) smaller than around 25 meters wide will burn up before it hits the ground, depending (obviously) on what it's made of.
Ironically, the lighter the meteoroid, the better chance it has of impacting because it can slow down enough in the atmosphere to reduce the friction.
So, really small ones almost always make it to the ground.

This asteroid is too small to worry much about, if (as you say) it's 10 to 30 meters wide. Maybe you should buy a hardhat though.

Harte

 

[TimeFlipper]

But Hartey, if you dropped an object weighing 10 pounds and another one weighing 5 pounds at the same time from the top of a building, both of them would hit the ground at the same time, thanks to good old gravity...maybe im wrong, but i always thought that rock meteors have a better chance of hitting us than iron meteors, because the iron has been burnt off due to friction ...

Iam building my own hardhat just in case a pesky meteor does hit me, but if an iron meteor lands near to me and doesnt destroy any of my antenna`s i will be sending it to a sword maker in Japan, he pays good money for them! ..

 

[TnWatchdog]

But Hartey, if you dropped an object weighing 10 pounds and another one weighing 5 pounds at the same time from the top of a building, both of them would hit the ground at the same time, thanks to good old gravity...maybe im wrong, but i always thought that rock meteors have a better chance of hitting us than iron meteors, because the iron has been burnt off due to friction ...

Iam building my own hardhat just in case a pesky meteor does hit me, but if an iron meteor lands near to me and doesnt destroy any of my antenna`s i will be sending it to a sword maker in Japan, he pays good money for them! ..

I always wear a hard hat under my tin foil hat...don't leave home without them.

 

[Harte]

But Hartey, if you dropped an object weighing 10 pounds and another one weighing 5 pounds at the same time from the top of a building, both of them would hit the ground at the same time, thanks to good old gravity...maybe im wrong, but i always thought that rock meteors have a better chance of hitting us than iron meteors, because the iron has been burnt off due to friction ...

Iam building my own hardhat just in case a pesky meteor does hit me, but if an iron meteor lands near to me and doesnt destroy any of my antenna`s i will be sending it to a sword maker in Japan, he pays good money for them! ..

Rock burns off just like iron does. But a stony meteorite is less dense so, for the same size meteorite, the stone one is more likely to impact because the air friction can slow it down more (which reduces the friction so it stops burning off.)

And two objects of different mass DO fall at the same rate - as long as they are exactly the same shape and size (again, because of air friction - unless they are both in a vacuum.)

Different asteroids/meteoroids come in at different starting velocities as well, which complicates matters.

Harte

 

[heka2015]

Let us use the recent classification to be on the same page beforehand:

Meteoride = 10⁻⁴ to 1¹ meters wide ( recently changed from 10¹ m max.)
Asteroid = all above 1 meter width up to planetoids
Comet = icy body gassing out passing the sun, hence leaving a tail. Can contain solid body.
Meteor = Any of the above vaporizing when entering into earth atmosphere.
Meteorite = Any of the above surviving atmospheric entry with impact on surface

A Meteor can explode in an air burst and split, surviving in form of Meteorites impacting earth.

An asteroid (meteoroid) smaller than around 25 meters wide will burn up before it hits the ground, depending (obviously) on what it's made of.

Reading your posts, i know you are a pragmatic man of science.
You sure don't mind to back that up somehow. @Harte

On the other hand there is abundant indication, asteroids of certain size (reclassification should make it most of them now) favor air bursts (fireball/superbolide/bolid) and violently explode above ground, maximising the damage zone significantly and splitting up into meteorites finally impacting on earth.
Space.com

Here, articles about the miscalculating of kinetic energy on asteroid impacts, misjudgedment of impact frequency and underestimation of risks.
Nature.com 1
Nature.com 2

Some documented Asteroids "Impacts" all resulting beeing air burst.

|Name (Source) | Air Burst? | Alt. Burst | Date/Time | Size | Estim. Weight | Speed Entry | Yield

Cheabelaynsk (Source 1,2)| Yes | 30-45 km | 15 March 2015 |18 m 10000-12000 t |19.16 km/s | 400-500 kt

Tunguska (Source) | Yes | 5-10 (8,5)km | 30 June 1908 | 60 - 190 m| ? | 33,500 mph | 3-5 Mt

Sikhote-Alin meteorite (Source) | Yes | 5.75 km |12 February 1947, 10:38 | Size? | 200 -300 kt |14 km/s | ?

Sutter's Mill meteorite (Source) | Yes |48 km | April 22, 2012 07:51 PCT | 2–4 m | ? | 28.6 km/s | 4 kt

Curuçá River Event (Source 1,2,3) | Yes |? | 13 August 1930 | <9 m | 1000 - 25000 t | ? | 9 kt- 5 Mt (most ~1 Mt)

Chicora Meteor (Source)| yes | 19 km | 24 June 1938 | ? | ? | ? | ?

Ch'ing-yang event (Source) | Yes(presumed) |1490 documented |Tunguska-Size|10 000 struck dead from meteorites

More evidence from Wikipedia on Meteor Air Burst.(Source)

Lets take Chebyalinsk as blueprint due the similar size and look at the damage it done.
#
Chebyalinsk Meteor/Meteorites Damage
# Source 1,2
- 50 villages were visited to verify the extent of glass damage
- In Chelyabinsk itself, 3613 apartment buildings (about 44%) had shattered and
broken glass, but these were not evenly distributed in the city.
- Structural damage included the collapse of a zinc factory roof.
- Directly below the fireball’s path, the shock wave was strong enough to blow people off their feet.
- In Yemanzhelinsk, window frames facing the trajectory were pushed inwards, and
suspended ceilings were sucked down above broken windows
- Due to shock-wave–induced vibrations, electricity and cell phone connectivity was briefly halted in the Kunashaksky
district at the far northern end of the damage area.
- The gas supply was briefly interrupted in some districts because of valves reacting to the vibrations.
- People found it painful to look at the bright fireball, but glancing away prevented lasting eye damage.
- Of 1113 respondents to an Internet survey who were outside at the time, 25 were
sunburned (2.2%), 315 felt hot (28%), and 415 (37%) felt warm
- In Korkino, 30 km from the point of peak brightness, one resident
reported getting a mild sunburn on the face, followed by peeling of skin.
Such effects occur at a minimum erythema dose of ~1000 J/m2 of 290- to 320-nm radiation (mostly UV-B).
- 5.3% reported sunburn, 48% eyes hurt, and 2.9% retinal burns.
- 6.4% reported a concussion or mental confusion, upset, or exhaustion as a result of excessive stress.
- Russian authorities stated that 1,491 people sought medical attention in Chelyabinsk Oblast within the first few days.
- most of the injured were hurt by the secondary blast effects of shattered, falling or blown-in glass.
- by 5 March 2013 the number of damaged buildings was tallied at over 7,200, which included some 6,040 apartment blocks, 293 medical facilities,
718 schools and universities, 100 cultural organisations, and 43 sport facilities, of which only about one and a half percent had not yet been repaired.

 

[heka2015]

NASA Facts on Chelyabinsk Meteor (NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office ,March 1, 2013, Don Yeomans & Paul Chodas)
(Source)
- relatively small asteroid approximately 17 to 20 meters in size
- entering the Earth's atmosphere at high speed and a shallow angle
- released a tremendous amount of energy, fragmented at high altitude, and produced a shower of pieces of various sizes that fell to the ground as meteorites
- The fireball was observed not only by video cameras and low frequency infrasound detectors, but also by U.S. Government sensors

NASA AMES Research Center Science Article
(Source)
- This was the biggest impact over land
since the poorly observed Tunguska impact in 1908, for which kinetic energy estimates range
from 3 to 5 to 10 to 50 MT .

- Compared with the much larger Tunguska event, Chelyabinsk was only on the
threshold of forming a common shock wave around the fragments when it broke at peak
brightness. Fragments were spatially isolated enough to be efficiently
decelerated, avoiding the transfer of momentum to lower altitudes and resulting in less damage
when the blast wave reached the ground.

Harvard Article (Martin Beech, Duncan Steel ,20 Feb. 1995)
(Source)
- ...If an object a few meter in diameter chances to enter the atmosphere a spectacular fireball is produced, and a meteorite dropping event will probably take place.

Space.com (Source)
Space.com (Source)
- the event is helping to flag a worrisome finding: Scientists have misjudged the frequency of large airbursts.
- Computer simulations also imply that such airbursts cause more damage than nuclear explosions of the same yield, which are typically used as an analogue to ballpark impact risk.
- biggest meteor blast since tunguska

Try to spot Chebyalinsk. Easy one.