UCF’s viewing of Asteroid 2012 DA14 sheds light on the normality of coexistence with asteroids in our nearby universe.
UCF hosted its own Asteroid 2012 DA14 viewing party on Friday, Feb. 15 to inform about the realities and myths of the space rocks, as well as show a live feed of the fly-by from telescopes in Spain, where astronomers first discovered this asteroid. From 1 to 3 p.m. in the Pegasus Ballroom in the student Union, students, as well as the public, attended and heard Dr. Michael F. A’Hearn, Dr. Harold Reitsema and UCF Professors Humberto Campins and Daniel Britt talk about the Asteroid 2012 DA14 as well as what is happening now in the research on these ancient rocks.
On Feb. 15, Asteroid 2012 DA14 flew between Earth and orbiting communication satellites, the closest fly-by in recorded history. According to Nasa.gov, the official website for NASA, Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed closest to Earth at 2:25 p.m. EST, over Indonesia. It was estimated to fly no closer than 17,000 miles above the surface of Earth, and never was projected to come in contact with Earth. NASA has identified more than 4,700 as potential threats to Earth, some as big as 16 football fields, the impact of a small asteroid like DA14 would equal the destructive power of an atomic bomb, so there’s a need to know more about them. Three space agencies, NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Japanese Space Agency are all planning missions to collect samples from asteroids in the next few years.
“It is estimated that there are perhaps a million asteroids in Earth’s vicinity that can cause damage,” said Harold Reitsema, The Sentinel Mission Director and a consultant to NASA.
There are only about 10,000 known asteroids near Earth, which is only about 1 percent of the asteroids around it. Reitsema went on to explain how the B612 Foundation was created to prevent future asteroid impacts on Earth and that they are preparing to launch an infrared space telescope in 2013 to bring samples of the asteroid back in 2023.
Professor Humberto Campins, UCF’s Provost Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy, explained that by collecting data from the asteroid in space, scientists believe they can uncover clues about the solar system hidden in its composition.
“We want to know how the solar system formed and what type of materials exist out there that we might be able to use, and how did life form and evolve on earth.” He explained that by collecting samples directly from the asteroid rather than from meteorites that have already been found on earth, “scientists can learn more about the asteroid’s behavior, so if we need to deflect one in the future, we will know more about it.”
The final speaker at the event, Dr. Daniel Britt, a member of UCF’s Physics faculty, spoke about the ways you can tell if a rock you have found is a meteorite or not. “We live in a very crowded neighborhood,” he said. “Meteorites fall to earth all the time.” He said that to tell if it is a meteorite, it would have an aerodynamic shape (because it fell from the sky), would be blackish/darker in color, would have regmaglypts (thumb-sized impressions in the rock), would have metal in it, and would have chondrules all over it (they look like little flecks of grain, he described them as “the sand of the universe”).
Sam Mariani, a senior studying health sciences at UCF, said she attended the event to learn more about the asteroid flying by Earth. “The whole program was very informational,” she said. “I learned a lot more than I expected to, and am glad my friend told me about it and I attended.”
For more information on B612 Foundation’s telescope, visit this website.