Meteor '2011 MD' to pass perilously close tonight

by Steven Mostyn - Jun 27 2011, 13:36

Focus your enthusiast’s telescope, cross your fingers, and hope for clear evening skies, because our insignificant marble of a planet will tonight have extremely close contact with a hurtling chunk of galactic detritus.

If the weather does decide to be accommodating, appropriately equipped stargazers can expect to witness the illuminated passage of ‘2011 MD’ as it zips by at a distance of between 8,000 and 11,000 miles—that’s closer than some global positioning satellites.

Likely to come as something of a surprise to those given to watching the skies based solely on the astronomical calendar, the meteor in question was only discovered last Wednesday by an automated telescope in New Mexico.

An initial alert was then transferred to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts, after which scientists began tracking the space rock and deemed its trajectory to be safe.

Although 2011 MD is thought to measure only 45 metres across, which is fairly small where meteors are concerned, it could still cause massive amounts of damage if it were to impact the planet’s surface.

However, space experts with far bigger brains than ours insist that even if it were on a collision course, 2011 MD probably wouldn’t make it through the planet’s protective atmosphere.

“We are certain that it will miss us, but if it did enter the atmosphere, an asteroid this size would mostly burn up in a brilliant fireball, possibly scattering a few meteorites,” commented Dr. Emily Baldwin of Astronomy Now in a Telegraph report.

Click this link to Astro Bob for details of where you need to be for optimum viewing of 2011 MD as it whizzes along on its way. Don’t worry if you miss it, the meteor will be back around in 2022.

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