[meteorite-list] Russia mega meteor and asteroid 2012DA14 related, yes I think so...

From: Michael Bross <element33_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2013 21:40:45 +0100
Message-ID: <6366F421E76847259C359A40F84E1E1B_at_DaDaPC>

Hi Rob

Your 1+1=2 doesn't convince me
BUT your Devil's Advocate much more...

I am glad I pursued on this, because NOW
I am getting a tangible answer

Thank you !

best regards to all

Michael B.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Rob Matson" <mojave_meteorites at cox.net>
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2013 9:33 PM
To: "'Michael Bross'" <element33 at peconic.net>; "'Chris Peterson'"
<clp at alumni.caltech.edu>; <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Russia mega meteor and asteroid 2012DA14related,yes I think so...

> Hi Michael,
>
>> ... I have learned to be more and more skeptical about the common/obvious
>> knowledge over the years... You might be right... but be careful about
>> your
>> high level of "certainty"...
>
> The level of celestial mechanical certainty involved here is comparable to
> the
> uncertainty that 1+1 = 2. That said, I will play Devil's Advocate and
> mention
> that
> there is one rather far-out scenario which is probably still dynamically
> impossible,
> but I mention it out of completeness. Imagine an object (that was once
> part
> of 2012 DA14) leading it by nearly a day on a slightly different
> trajectory.
> (Forget for the moment that days if not weeks before the 2012 DA14 flyby
> it would have been detected by astronomers that were already tracking
> the larger asteroid.) Suppose this unlikely object happens to make an
> extremely grazing pass of the lunar farside such that its direction is
> drastically
> bent by ~90 degrees -- in precisely the right direction for a grazing
> intercept
> with Earth, say, 6 to 10 hours later. Such a 3-body solution is the ONLY
> way to
> bring about the situation you require, and yet I would argue that the
> probability
> of it happening by chance is much, much smaller than that of two smallish
> asteroids making a close pass by earth within 24 hours of each other.
>
> Really, though, the failure to telescopically detect the second object
> ahead
> of 2012 DA14 when it was being tracked by so many professionals and
> citizen scientists throws a bit of cold water on the whole crazy scenario.
>
> --Rob
>
Received on Sat 16 Feb 2013 03:40:45 PM PST