Yup, that's a white dot on a black surface.
I'm sure this event may be astronomically amazing but this video sucks - sorry have to downvote.

Edit: I don't mean your choice of video sucks, but visually, it means nothing on it's own, the camera work is terrible, no audio, no description, introduction, explanation or anything that would otherwise make it in some way great. As the mission of the Sift is to filter the crap, the chaos and the majestic, I feel the need to filter this out.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by pumkinandstorm.

> that's a white dot on a black surface.

I missed that! I saw an asteroid, maybe 30 ft wide, perhaps showing tumbling motion, being tracked at a ridiculous custom rate of azimuth and altitude change, by a team from MIT working for NASA. Watch the stars fly by in the background.

This near earth object at just thousands of miles away from missing the Earth, is probably like missing a home run in baseball because your bat was 1/50th of a millimeter too low and 0.05 mph too slow.

I hear what you are saying. (but)
I'm not judging the event. This sounds fraking cool, and I'm sure it's a scientific wonder that we can now detect, analyze and examine events such as these. The science isn't lost on me or the work, study and teams that go into this sort of thing.

What I don't see is great video. I'm not asking for a cheesy edited version dumbed down for the 6-9 p.m. TV viewing public. I am expecting some explanation (as part of the footage), some commentary from the people working on the project, or some graphics explaining the likelihood, descriptions of projections, something.

If there was no description next to this, non of us would even know what we were looking at. Sort of misses the mark from the medium we are here to judge. I'm basing my vote on the video in front of me, not the event that's trying to be presented.


>> ^deathcow:

> that's a white dot on a black surface.
I missed that! I saw an asteroid, maybe 30 ft wide, perhaps showing tumbling motion, being tracked at a ridiculous custom rate of azimuth and altitude change, by a team from MIT working for NASA. Watch the stars fly by in the background.
This near earth object at just thousands of miles away from missing the Earth, is probably like missing a home run in baseball because your bat was 1/50th of a millimeter too low and 0.05 mph too slow.

Just a few decades ago, most scientists thought the idea of asteroids crashing to Earth to be ludicrous. Today, this same idea isan accepted fact. Not only do asteroids fall to Earth, but more are being discovered every day. Yesterday, one of these newly-discovered asteroids just buzzed Earth. Coincidentally, this comes just days after NASA said that thenear-Earth asteroid population was larger than previously thought.

Monday, asteroid 2012KP24, which is about 69 feet across, came within about 32,000 miles ofEarth, well within the Moon’s orbit. Yesterday, asteroid 2012KT42 came within a mere 9,000 miles of Earth. In a fact thatmay be especially disconcerting tosome, the time span between discovery and close approach for the second asteroid was only a day! Talk about next to no warning.

Now for the good news: the asteroids were small and even if either were to collide with the Earth, they may not even have been large enough to survive the descent through the atmosphere,burning up in a spectacular fireball instead. Still, though, the fact that an asteroid can sneak up on us out of space with only afew days notice is the troubling part of this whole situation.

It is a perfectly logical idea that an asteroid could, one day, destroy life as we know it on Earth. The good news is that scientists are busy developing plans to avert doomsday. The problem is this: in these doomsday prevention plans, the time frame for a response is typically, at the least, months, notdays. With only a couple of days notice and with current technology, it would probably be impossible to do anything to save the planet and our civilization.

Read more: http://scienceray.com/astronomy/pair-of-asteroids-justbuzzed-earth/#ixzz1yT02pGAK (watch for pop-up ads)

2012 KT42 is an asteroid discovered by Alex R. Gibbs of the Mt. Lemmon Survey (part of the Catalina Sky Survey) with a 1.5-m reflector + CCD on May 28, 2012. The asteroid had a close approach to the Earth on May 29, 2012, approaching to only Distance: ~8950 miles / ~14,440 km above the planet's surface. This means 2012 KT42 came inside the Clarke Belt of geosynchronous satellites. As of May 28, 2012, the estimated 5 to 10 meter wide asteroid ranked #6 on the top 20 list of closest-approaches to Earth. There was no danger of a collision during the close approach. 2012 KT42 will pass roughly 0.01 AU (1,500,000 km; 930,000 mi) from Venus on 2012 July 8.[3]

It is estimated that an impact would produce an upper atmosphere air burst equivalent to 11 kt TNT,[4] roughly equal to Hiroshima's Little Boy. The asteroid would be vaporized as these small impacts occur approximately once per year. A comparable-sized object caused the Sutter's Mill meteorite in California on 2012 April 22. It was removed from the Sentry Risk Table on 2012 May 30.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_KT42

Just for fun: http://www.baja.tv/watch/video/2RKg-TkiA-s/may-29-2012-near-miss-asteroid-2012-kt42-whaaaat/

I can't bring myself to post this.... (idiot)

The pastor says "Jesus said these were some of the signs of the end of the age". He must be referring to the age of planetary bombardment... He should have seen this place a few billion years ago.

>> ^Sagemind:

Just for fun: http://www.baja.tv/watch/video/2RKg-TkiA-s/may-29-
2012-near-miss-asteroid-2012-kt42-whaaaat/
I can't bring myself to post this.... (idiot)

I'm pretty sure I saw Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck...

!! said I was going to downvote - but somehow showed up as an upvote - win some loose some