User:ZooGuard/Sandbox/Asteroid

An asteroid is a piece of debris orbiting the Sun. Surprisingly, the term has no better definition - asteroids are defined by what they are not: lumps of "stuff" that are too small to be planets (and, since recently, dwarf planets), don't grow a tail and coma near the Sun like comets, and are too big and of the wrong origin to be meteoroids (the small pebbles and dust particles that cause meteors, usually the remains of comets). Alternative names include the somewhat outdated "minor planet" and "planetoid", and the descriptive "small Solar System body" ("asteroid" itself means "star-like", because asteroids look like bright dots when viewed with a telescope).

Asteroid impact
An asteroid impacting the Earth is one of the few scientifically plausible scenarios for the End of the World as We Know It. For some reason, this is of interest only to astronomers, space geeks, the politicians the former two groups ask for money to do something about it, and assorted cranks, doomsayers and conspiracy theorists.

Background information
Is there a point, or this should be spread?

Asteroid belts and groups
There is a popular misconception, caused by bad scientifically inaccurate sci-fi movies like Star Wars, that there are

Bodies of interest
Some asteroids have attracted the attention of the media and/or conspiracy theorists and cranks. This usually includes NEOs (near-Earth objects) and PHOs (potentially hazardous objects), especially if there was a high impact probability estimates announced after their discovery (it usually gets downgraded after the orbit gets more precisely established) or they were about to make a very close Earth fly-by.

News of close fly-bys invariably are a cause of "why are they telling us so shortly before the event?" and "why did they discover it so late?", which usually leads to "they already new, they just didn't want to scare the sheeple". ("They" being NASA/"the Government"/TPTB).


 * (provisional designation: 2004 MN4) still enjoys being the most well-known to the public potentially hazardous object, though its impact probability estimates have steadily declined since the initial high values that put it in the media spotlight. Wikipedia has a handy list describing how it changed over time. NEEDS MOAR
 * (provisional designation; ) made a very close Earth fly-by on 15 February 2013. The announcement of its discovery caused the usual turmoil among conspiracy theorists. NEEDS MOAR, also Russian meteor

Named after people
One of the perks of discovering an asteroid is getting to pick a name, which is a bit of an exception - nowadays, most astronomical objects get some sort of a catalog number (stars) or a designation following an established pattern (comets, exoplanets). Since discovering an asteroid is within the capabilities of amateur astronomers, a lot of them end up with names like these: NEEDS MORE
 * , named after James Randi
 * , discovered by the late Jeff Medkeff and named after Phil Plait; Medkeff also named several other asteroids after skeptic and science celebrities

The JPL Small Body Database Browser
The most abused NASA webpage? :) See also Comet Elenin

the orbit diagram and "collisions" (zoom in!) close approach data