Watch asteroid 2012 DA14 buzz past harmlessly, via streaming video

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/15/16966984-watch-asteroid-2012-da14-buzz-past-harmlessly-via-streaming-video?lite

By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Feb. 15, 2013

The best way for most of us to watch asteroid 2012 DA14 come within 17,200 miles of Earth on Friday, and then recede harmlessly into the cosmos, is to fire up your Web browser and watch the show online. Pictures of the space rock, which is about half the length of a football field, are already starting to roll in.

NASA's experts on near-Earth objects say that the time of closest approach will come at 2:25 p.m. ET, when the asteroid is zooming above the eastern Indian Ocean at a speed of almost 17,500 mph (7.8 kilometers per second). It'll be too dim to see with the naked eye, but observers in Australia, Asia and Europe might be able to follow it with binoculars or small telescopes if they know exactly where to look. (If you want to try it, follow the directions at the bottom of this item.)

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Experts estimate that asteroids the size of 2012 DA14 hit our planet every 1,200 years or so, exploding with the energy of a 2.5-megaton atomic bomb: The last such impact struck a remote region of Siberia without warning in 1908, flattening 820 square miles of forest. If an object that big were to hit in just the wrong place, it could wipe out a city. Coincidentally, a much smaller meteoroid came down over Russia on Friday, sparking a fireball and a glass-shattering shock wave.

Even though the 150-foot-wide (45-meter-wide) asteroid is the biggest object of its kind to be seen coming this close to Earth, its orbit is so well-known that NASA's Near-Earth Object Program can rule out any chance of collision in the foreseeable future. And even though 2012 will fly 5,000 miles closer than satellites in geosynchronous orbit, NASA says its mostly south-to-north orbital path goes through a "sweet spot" that keeps it far away from those satellites — as well as from other spacecraft that are in closer orbits, including the International Space Station.

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Other telescopes, spread out from Australia to Israel to the Canary Islands to the U.S., will be gathering optical data — and the images from some of those telescopes will be shared on Friday. Here's the viewing schedule:

Noon ET: NASA plans to start streaming near-real-time imagery of the asteroid's flyby, as provided by telescopes in Australia and Europe, weather permitting. Watch JPL video on Ustream.

2 p.m. ET: To mark the time of closest encounter, NASA will present a half-hour program with commentary from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The show will feature computer animations as well as any live or near-real-time imagery that becomes available from telescopes in Australia. Watch video on NASA.gov or Ustream. (NBCNews.com also plans to stream the show.)

----- [See the link at the top for more viewing possibilities]