Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Near-Miss Asteroid Is Found To Be Artificial
The Minor Planet Center, the world clearinghouse for information about newly discovered asteroids, raised the alarm last week. In an email to professional observatories, they announced that a previously unknown asteroid would miss the Earth by just 5,600 kilometers.
The newly discovered space rock was given an official label by the MPC, which is run by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Massachusetts, for the International Astronomical Union. Observations for 2007 VN84 were collected from astronomers around the world, to track the threatening celestial body. This would be one of the closest approaches ever by a sizable asteroid - less than half the diameter of the Earth.
Then Denis Denisenko, of Moscow's Space Research Institute (IKI), made an interesting discovery. He noticed that the incoming asteroid's track matched that of the European space probe Rosetta on a scheduled flyby of Earth.
The Rosetta craft was launched from Europe's Guiana Space Center in early March of 2004; the purpose of the space probe is to place itself in low orbit around the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko at a distance of 675 million kilometers from the sun. To get there, the billion-dollar craft will spend ten years boosting its velocity (using the gravity assist technique) with no fewer than three flybys of Earth and one of Mars.
(Rosetta on Earth fly-by)
Denisenko's discovery came none too soon; Britain's Royal Astronomical Society was preparing a bulletin for the media that would have been released on Monday.
In an editorial notice, the MPC stated:
The minor planet 2007 VN84 does not exist and the designation is to be retired.This incident, along with previous NEOCP postings of the WMAP spacecraft, highlights the deplorable state of availability of positional information on distant artificial objects (whether in earth orbit or in solar orbit). The Distant Artificial Satellites Observations (DASO) page lists a number of such objects, but has to be updated on a fairly regular basis from five different sources and data is not always available for the timespans needed. A single source for information on all distant artificial objects would be very desirable.
This real-life story reminded me of a fictional one. In his award-winning novel Rendezvous with Rama, sf writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote about the approach of a mysterious asteroid, designated Rama:
At a rather horrifying cost, a space-probe soon to be launched from Mars ... could be modified and sent on a high-speed trajectory to meet Rama. Rama... would be in real close-up for less than a second...The first images, from ten thousand kilometers away, brought to a halt the activities of all mankind. On a billion television screens, there appeared a tiny, featureless cylinder...
In other asteroid news:
- First Asteroid Belt Found Around Star Like Our Sun
- MIT Tether For Walking On Asteroids
- Asteroid Named After Douglas Adams
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/11/2007)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...' - Clifford Simak,
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.' - Iain Banks, 1987.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Pole-Dancing Stripperbot Robot
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
Collective Superintelligence Is At Hand!
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
Instant Journalists: Ordinary People With Cell Phones
'We'll show them whose planet this is!'
Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor
'The electronic body analyzer had been developed...'
Meta's Horizon Studio's Unique Avatars From Text Prompts
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
VaMEx Biomimetic Mars Robot Inspired By Skink
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
NEO Brain Computer Interface (BCI)
'The remains of the lace took on the rough shape of a brain...'
Did Frank Herbert Predict Bistable Displays Like E-Ink?
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
Monolith One Giant Industrial Metal 3D-printer
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC)
'And here they began to build...'
China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
MAI-Voice-2 Microsoft Text-To-Speech
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
