[meteorite-list] Beautiful time-lapse movie showing the growth in discovered minor planets since 1980

From: Meteorites USA <eric_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:54:12 -0700
Message-ID: <4C7809D4.8020805_at_meteoritesusa.com>

Wow! Wow! WOW! It really is a cosmic "soup" out there. It's so fluid,
and reactive. All I can think is. Look at all the future meteorites! ;)

Unless of course one destroys our planet first. The red ones are scary... ;)

Eric


On 8/27/2010 10:34 AM, Matson, Robert D. wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Here is a fascinating video graphically showing the exponential growth
> in
> discovered minor planets over the last 30 years. At the beginning of
> 1980,
> the count stood at 8954. It's now over half a million!
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_d-gs0WoUw
>
> In this time-lapse video, as new minor planets are discovered, they are
> highlighted in white. You'll notice that the majority of the discoveries
> follow the earth around in its orbit (since most discoveries are made at
> opposition).
>
> In the 1990s, the big surveys start to come online, and the discovery
> rates skyrocket. In 2010, a new pattern of discoveries starts to show up
> in a line perpendicular to the earth-sun line. This shows the dramatic
> increase in minor planet discoveries by WISE (the Widefield Infrared
> Survey Explorer), which only images near 90-degree elongation.
>
> The final color-coding of minor planets differentiates the NEOs from the
> mainbelters. Earth-crossing NEOs are colored red; earth-approaching NEOs
> (perihelion distance less than 1.3 a.u.) are in yellow; all others are
> green.
>
> Cheers,
> Rob
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Received on Fri 27 Aug 2010 02:54:12 PM PDT