Skip to main content

Scientists Observe Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Buzz Past Earth With Its Own Moon

Meghan Bartels writes via Space.com: One of Earth's premier instruments for studying nearby asteroids is back to work after being rattled by earthquakes, and its first new observations show that a newly discovered space rock is actually two separate asteroids. The instrument is the planetary radar system at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The observatory was closed for most of January, after a series of earthquakes hit the island beginning on Dec. 28, 2019. The observatory reopened on Jan. 29. Meanwhile, on Jan. 27, scientists using a telescope on Mauna Loa in Hawaii spotted an asteroid that astronomers hadn't seen before. The team dubbed the newfound space rock 2020 BX12 based on a formula recognizing its discovery date.

Because of the size of 2020 BX12 and the way its orbit approaches that of Earth, it is designated a potentially hazardous asteroid. However, the space rock has already come as close to Earth as it will during this pass (2.7 million miles or 4.3 million kilometers); astronomers have calculated the asteroid's close approaches with Earth for the next century, and all will be at a greater distance than this one was. [...] Based on the observations, the scientists discovered that 2020 BX12 is a binary asteroid, with a smaller rock orbiting the larger rock. About 15% of larger asteroids turn out, on closer inspection, to be binary, according to NASA. The larger rock is likely at least 540 feet (165 meters) across, and the smaller one is about 230 feet (70 m) wide, according to the observations gathered by Arecibo. When the instrument observed the two space rocks on Feb. 5, they appeared to be separated by about 1,200 feet (360 m).


from Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters https://ift.tt/38rtor1
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dark Mode vs. Light Mode: Which Is Better?

Recently a well-respected UI consulting firm (the Nielsen Norman Group) published their analysis of academic studies on the question of whether Dark Mode or Light Mode was better for reading? Cosima Piepenbrock and her colleagues at the Institut für Experimentelle Psychologie in Düsseldorf, Germany studied two groups of adults with normal (or corrected-to-normal) vision: young adults (18 to 33 years old) and older adults (60 to 85 years old). None of the participants suffered from any eye diseases (e.g., cataract)... Their results showed that light mode won across all dimensions : irrespective of age, the positive contrast polarity was better for both visual-acuity tasks and for proofreading tasks... Another study, published in the journal Human Factors by the same research group, looked at how text size interacts with contrast polarity in a proofreading task. It found that the positive-polarity advantage increased linearly as the font size was decreased: namely, the smaller the fon...
Post a Comment
Read more

One of the Most Destructive Botnets Can Now Spread To Nearby Wi-Fi Networks

The sophistication of the Emotet malware's code base and its regularly evolving methods for tricking targets into clicking on malicious links has allowed it to spread widely. "Now, Emotet is adopting yet another way to spread: using already compromised devices to infect devices connected to nearby Wi-Fi networks ," reports Ars Technica. From the report: Last month, Emotet operators were caught using an updated version that uses infected devices to enumerate all nearby Wi-Fi networks. It uses a programming interface called wlanAPI to profile the SSID, signal strength, and use of WPA or other encryption methods for password-protecting access. Then, the malware uses one of two password lists to guess commonly used default username and password combinations. After successfully gaining access to a new Wi-Fi network, the infected device enumerates all non-hidden devices that are connected to it. Using a second password list, the malware then tries to guess credentials for each...
Post a Comment
Read more

Microsoft Wants Schoolchildren Playing Minecraft To Learn Math

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: A Microsoft blog post notes the company has lined up K-12 educators to sing the praises of Minecraft Education Edition at the Future of Education Technology Conference , where it'll also be pitching Microsoft Education in general. A 2019 Recap of Minecraft: Education Edition (and an accompanying video) highlight Microsoft's success in getting teachers to use Minecraft to teach subjects across the K-12 curriculum, not just Hour of Code tutorials . Microsoft's ambitions for Minecraft were tipped in a 2015 press release , which included the lofty claim that "Minecraft has the power to transform learning on a global scale...." There are some teacher walkthrough videos available for review, like the unlisted one for Math Bed Wars! , a Common Core-aligned Minecraft-based lesson that teaches multiplication commutativity ("Students build arrays to show commutative properties of multiplication while constructing defense...
Post a Comment
Read more