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What's On This Weekend

This weekend, don't miss Warren Miller's Snow Movie in Christchurch, Taupo's Erupt Festival, 1814 in Mt...

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LEADERSHIP QUOTE OF THE DAY (18 May 2012): We must become the change we want to see. - Mahatma Gandhi

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Asteroid Alert

Recent orbit computations on an asteroid discovered last December indicated that it was virtually certain that the asteroid, known as 1997 XF11 would pass within the moon's distance of the earth a little more than 30 years from now.

Refined computations, based on prediscovery images from 1990, show that the miss distance is now a rather comfortable 600 thousand miles.

The asteroid, 1997 XF11 was discovered by Jim Scotti in the course of the Spacewatch programme at the University of Arizona. This project utilises modern electronic technology on a 36-inch telescope at Kitt Peak that was built 77 years ago.

After the discovery observations on December 6, observations made by two Japanese amateur astronomers during the following two weeks showed that the minimum distance between the orbits of 1997 XF11 and the earth was very small. Given also that the object was quite large as earth-approaching asteroids go, perhaps one mile across, it was added to the list of "potentially hazardous asteroids" (PHAs) that need to be monitored, lest they are destined to come dangerously close to the earth over the course of the next several centuries. There are currently 108.

The last close shave was a tiny asteroid that zipped by Earth in February which made the closest-ever approach to our planet without hitting it.

The asteroid, called 2011 CQ1, came within 5,471 kilometers of Earth on 4 Feb 2011. Astronomers with NASA's Near-Earth Object office now say the flyby set a record for a space rock.

"This object, only about 1 metre in diameter, is the closest non-impacting object in our asteroid catalog to date," wrote astronomers Don Yeomans and Paul Chodas in a post-flyby analysis. Both scientists work in the NEO office, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Leica Oskar Barnack Award

New record number of entries to this year’s Leica Oskar Barnack Award...

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Beauty With A Purpose

With the flooding and devastation in Fiji the most beautiful women on the planet are taking up the cause...

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