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Re: Doomsday Icarus

Article posted by Carlos Hernandez:

>	Russian scientists said that the end of the world will take 
>	place in eight years, when Earth will collide with an asteroid, 
>	and only the joint effort of all countries could avoid the 
>	dramatic ending.
>
>	Icarus, discovered in 1949, comes near the Earth every 19 years, 
>	but each time its distance to us is reduced and its velocity 
>	increases, 

False alarm, folks.  Icarus will not be impacting the Earth.

Icarus is in a chaotic orbit which is typical of
all asteroids whose orbits cross the orbit of another planet.  Icarus' flyby
distance to Earth varies on each pass.

>and scientists fear that its next visit, in the 
>	summer of 2006, will be the last one.

Icarus doesn't come anywhere near the Earth in 2006.  How very
embarrasing.

>	Russian scientists alerted that the impact is "almost 
>	unavoidable" and made a plea to all states to conform a common 
>	front of action to carry out a sophisticated space project to 
>	deviate or destroy the deadly planetoid with powerful nuclear 
>	detonations.

"Almost unavoidable"?.  Change this to "non-existant" and you've nailed 
it on the head.

>	In 1949 it passed 28 million Km away from Earth on its way to 
>	the Sun, but 19 years later, on June 14, 1968, its distance was 
>	reduced to only 6.36 million Km.

They've neglected to mention that Icarus made its last near-Earth flyby on 
June 11, 1996, at a distance of 0.1012 AU, or 15.2 million km.
The next return of Icarus will be on June 16, 2015, and it will be at
a distance of 0.0545 AU, or 8.2 million km.  

There are several inaccurate statements in this article, and the author
apparently did not even check the Icarus' orbital elements when he wrote
the article.  Icarus will not impact the Earth in 2006, and is nowhere
the vicinity of the Earth in that year.  The next close pass by the asteroid
isn't until 2015, and it won't hit the Earth then either.  The asteroid
does not pass by the Earth every 19 years, but its return time varies.  Also,
the asteroid does not get closer on each subsequent pass by the Earth as
the article claimes.

Icarus is of interest because it is an Earth crossing object.  It may hit the
Earth sometime in the future, or it may be ejected out of the solar system.
Either way, we are talking on the scale of millions of years, and Icarus
will not be hitting the Earth within our lifetime.  There are a number
of Earth crossing objects like Icarus, and we carefully monitor their orbits.
Here's a list of all of the known objects that come within 0.2 AU of the Earth
in the next 25 years, and none of them are going to impact the Earth:

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/CloseApp.html

Ron Baalke