A live online feed was set up to track the asteroid that whizzed by close to earth last Friday.
Just when we thought there would never be a local connection to the asteroid that flew unnervingly close by earth, comes this report from the Boston Globe: a Wellesley teen was among a small group to manage a live online feed that tracked the asteroid's path. According to the Globe story, Sam Lapides, 17, of Wellesley, was one of three students monitoring a giant telescope on Friday at Dexter and Southfield Schools in Brookline. The Globe report says that Lapides was among the teens who closely followed the asteroid through one of the biggest telescopes in the Boston area.
Scientists expect the asteroid to come very close to the Earth - about 17,200 miles away, or only 1/13th the distance to the moon.
An asteroid Friday will pass Earth within the moon's orbit, flying lower than communications, weather and GPS satellites high above the planet, according to Space.com. While it will be the nearest to Earth an object of its size has ever passed, asteroid 2012 DA 14 won't be visible from Massachusetts, even with a telescope, because the action will happen during the daylight hours, said astronomer David Dundee, who analyzes images and data captured by NASA's fireball cameras at Tellus Science Museum. "The distance is about 1/13th the distance to the moon," Dundee said, adding the asteroid will be the closest—17,200 miles from Earth—at 2:24 p.m. "2012 DA 14 is about 150 feet across and traveling at a speed of over 17,000 miles per hour. "…
