Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Asteroid 2012 DA14-Earth Flyby Reality Check





The article “Asteroid 2012 DA14-Earth Flyby Reality Check” talks about the encounter with an asteroid Earth will be facing within the next week. On February 15, 2013, an asteroid will enter Earth’s ring of geosynchronous weather and communication satellites. NASA has determined the path of this asteroid and it will not collide with Earth, for now. The asteroid measures approximately 150 feet in diameter and will be 17, 200 miles above Earth surface at the closest approach. This unique asteroid has a similar rotation around the Sun that Earth does, making the collision rate higher. As it enters the Earth system, it will stay for about 33 hours and exit on February 16. It was first discovered on February 23, 2012 by the La Sagra Sky Survey, which is operated in Spain. Then, it was 2.7 million miles away from Earth, leading to the suspicion how many more just like DA14 are left undiscovered. Scientists are very interested in the small near-Earth object and hope that this will bring about new discoveries as well. Scientists believe that if an asteroid similar to DA14 were to impact Earth, it would cause regional devastation. It would release around 2.5 megatons of energy, which would cause some destruction, and flattening of the land it impacts. However, the asteroid DA14 will not cause any destruction or damage and will only be visible in Europe, Africa, and Asia.


The information presented in this article is significant to humanity because it builds our knowledge on space and the risks it can have on Earth. With this asteroid coming as close as it is to Earth, it gives teams of scientist the opportunity to learn more about asteroids so they can gain further knowledge for the future. They will look through radars to find out fundamental properties so ways to prevent and collision with Earth with another asteroid can be constructed. NASA is developing new programs to go along with their other Near Earth Object programs. The more NASA knows about objects in space that can collide or affect Earth the more safe Earth will be.


This article, because NASA gave the information, holds truthful and reliable information about the upcoming events and the future plans for the safety of Earth. Diagrams and videos, as well as the undying important facts, help bring a better understanding to those who are interested in the topic, but who might be confused. The article was well written and had separate questions that could be of concern or that would bring about a better understanding about the event occurring in the next few days. NASA made sure to state that we would not be in any harm. Overall the article was very interesting because no one ever mentions certain topics like this in school that could be of interest to students. If any students like hearing about new facts about space, the NASA website holds many more articles about different things going on in our universe.


Posted for B. Alberghine

5 comments:

  1. My peer Brianna wrote an article summary about the article “Asteroid 2012 DA14-Earth Flyby Reality Check” which talks about an asteroid that will pass in earth’s atmosphere. There were many interesting facts in this article that caught my attention and one was how on February 15, 2013, an asteroid will enter Earth’s ring of geosynchronous weather and communication satellites. The second one I found was how large the asteroid was it is about 150 feet in diameter. The third thing I found intriguing was how far it will be away from the earth’s surface and that is 17, 200 miles above Earth surface and that’s the closest it will be. The best thing that she included in this summary was saying “. If any students like hearing about new facts about space, the NASA website holds many more articles about different things going on in our universe.” That was very informative and helped me understand a little bit more of what she was talking about. The two things that she could have fixed were how she introduced the article and she could have included that author’s name. The second thing would be how she could have included more of her opinion into the commentary

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  2. I read the review of “Asteroid 2012 DA14 – Earth Flyby Reality Check” by my classmate Brianna Alberghine. She wrote a very well written review. Brianna was able to show the information and data of an article made of videos and pictures in a clear and concise way. The review gives specific facts about the event, such as the size of the asteroid and distance away from Earth when it will pass. She is able to clearly display important details. Brianna was also able to choose a good topic that we can all relate to. Because of the recent doomsday scares, people have greater interest in learning about possible asteroid risks. Brianna, in a way, was able to tell us that this asteroid will have no harm to Earth, while explaining to us the potential damage if a similar asteroid hits. Brianna also suggests for scientists to take this near miss as a warning and research ways to stop an actual threatening catastrophe.
    Although it was an excellent review, Brianna could have possibly told a bit more about the asteroid’s discovery and where it came from. It is an interesting fact for the reader of the review that could be expanded upon. Brianna could have also talked about specific ways scientists might be able to stop an asteroid heading for a collision with Earth.
    Brianna was able to write an extraordinary review on the article. I was impressed with how she addressed the article’s importance and how things of this matter should be known and talked about more. I enjoyed both the article and the review greatly.

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  3. My classmate Brianna wrote a review on the article” Asteroid 2012 DA14-Earth Flyby Reality Check”, which talks about a asteroid that’s going to enter our Earth system on Feb.15th. It is a well-written review which has just enough numerical information, such as “150 feet in diameter”, “17, 200 miles above Earth surface”, and “2.7 million miles away from Earth”. All the information she gave in the first paragraph is related and everything flows very well. The pieces of information are also very organized, in the order of how DA 14 looks like, how it was found, and what we expect to happen. Brianna also did a great job on talking about the reason why we care about this coming Earth flyby of this asteroid. She tells us the damage that this kind of asteroids can cause, which makes finding out the fundamental properties of it and the ways to prevent the collision very important to us.
    Although it was an excellent review, Brianna could have included some pictures or diagrams to help the readers to understand and know more about the article, as she said in the last paragraph, “Diagrams and videos, as well as the undying important facts, help bring a better understanding to those who are interested in the topic”. Brianna could have also talked about particular ways that scientists may use to stop an asteroid heading for a collision with Earth, since after reading the article, some readers would think: this time we are lucky, but what about the next time.
    After all, I really enjoyed the article in the topic Brianna chose and the organized way that she gave the information. I was very impressed that an asteroid can release 2.5 megatons of energy that may cause flattening of the land it impacts. And it’s also very good to mention the NASA website which is open to everyone to learn more about space.

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  4. My classmate Briana reviewed a very interesting article, it was entitled, “Asteroid 2012 DA14 Earth flyby reality check.” Briana did a very good job with this article; she has a lot of interesting information in here. Also I think she did a great job of taking the article and making it concise and make sense. Also I feel like Briana gave a real voice to the review, she was able to apply it well, and I felt it was interesting to read.
    I think the review could be slightly shorter it does feel a little long, but nothing major. I think the article could have used a little more background information from other sources that would have given the article a little more depth.
    But overall it was a really good article. I thought it was very interesting overall the asteroid is very interesting to consider.

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  5. My classmate Briana did a great job on her review of the article “Asteroid 2012 DA14-Earth Flyby Reality Check.” One thing she did well was her summary. Her summary was very detailed and straight to the point. It was interesting but not too long enough for the reader to get bored. A second thing she did well, was choose a topic that is currently happening at the time. For instance, on February 15, an asteroid will enter Earth’s ring of geosynchronous. A third she did well was talk about how this asteroid will not be dangerous to Earth. Although Briana’s review was good, there are a few things she could do to make it better. First, she could have included quotes from scientists or other people about what this means. Second, she could have added some pictures or diagrams because in her last paragraph, she mentions diagrams and videos. One thing I found interesting was that even though an asteroid of that size will only be visible in some parts of the world and that it won’t leave much damage. Overall, Briana did a great job on her review.

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