Techies 23: Astronomy Donomy

Big asteroid swinging by Earth today has its own moon

Astronomers getting their first close-up glimpse of a giant asteroid about to whiz by Earth found a surprise bonus rock. A smaller moon asteroid is circling the larger space rock, an unusual but not unheard of space phenomenon.

The larger 1.7 mile-wide rock named Asteroid 1998 QE2 will be the closest to Earth on Friday at 4.59 pm EDT. Don't worry, though. It will still be 3.6 million miles away. NASA scientist Paul Chodas said it's one of the larger asteroids to swing by Earth and is the size of the space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs.

The smaller rock was discovered Wednesday night by astronomers using radar to look at QE2. The moon asteroid is about 2,000 feet wide. That's about average for such near-Earth objects

The MoonRider is a Hybrid Futuristic Two Wheeler

Designed by Marko Design, The MoonRider is a futuristic hybrid two wheeler which can be driven as a bike, but also acts as a flying machine.

The lightweight motorcycle is an electric-powered bike with zero emission as well a plasma jet engine to provide power in flying mode. The MoonRider is made of lightweight composite materials which allows the bike to fly efficiently.

The MoonRider features two front tandem wheels that consist of electric motors powered by electric batteries. The batteries are charged up by solar panels placed in the front of the two wheeler. Talk about the future!

A Violent Birth Illustration courtesy Caltech/NASA

With the world abuzz this week about Earth's close encounter with a giant asteroid, NASA scientists announced on May 30 the discovery of an entire new family of these celestial rocks hiding out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

This artist's impression depicts the violent birth of one of these new-found families. A violent smashup creates fragments that fly apart, forming loose groups that orbit the sun as new asteroid families.

NASA researchers were able to identify 28 separate groups of asteroids by scanning millions of infrared snapshots from the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) all-sky survey.

The next step will be for researchers to identify the parent objects that created these hundreds of newly discovered asteroids.

—Andrew Fazekas
Published May 31, 2013