Close Asteroid Pass

LINEAR picked up a small rock now called 2011 MD that will be as close 12,000 kilometers (7500 miles) to the earth Monday the 27th about 12:00 noon, Topeka time. The rock will whiz by about 6.7 km/second actually fairly slow for a rock this close. We won’t be able to see it here at it’s closest. It’ll be deep in the southern hemisphere passing over the Antarctic while exiting the immediate vicinity of the earth.
The rather crude video shows the asteroid Saturday night.
Lance Benner has secured some time on the Goldstone radar facility to try and get a ‘radar picture’ of this ~10 meter object. Bill Gray has stated he didn’t think it was a piece of space junk but is natural. (real rock – not man made).
cheers,
Gary Hug
garyhug@ksmaildotnet
md

Demons invade Farpoint!

Farpoint has had some unwanted guests as of late. Our paper plates and toothpicks have been ravaged. Signs of their demonic presence are left all over the floor. They have even managed to get inside the printer and ruin the printer paper. These mice sure are a pain.

Eric has deduced that they probably get in through the cable hole that allows us to run cable to the Tombaugh. That hole has been filled with metal mesh. Hopefully that will end the invasion but remember to cleanup before leaving Farpoint so we don’t attract more of these horrible creatures.

Original Image attributions:
George Shuklin (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Thomas Schoch, cropped by User:Jomegat [CC-BY-SA-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons