From: Alfio Puglisi (puglisi@arcetri.astro.it)
Date: Fri Apr 12 2002 - 15:23:07 MDT
On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>In one of the newly studied binaries, called 2000 DP107, the larger rock
>is about 874 yards (800 meters) in diameter and the smaller one is
>roughly the size of three football fields. They are separated by about
>1.9 miles (3 kilometers). They orbit each other and can even create
>eclipses of the Sun's light."
>
>I find this rather interesting because a year or so ago I recall working
>outside one day with a cloudless sky when a rather large shadow passed
>through the valley and over me. Looking up I saw no aircraft or clouds
>anywhere near the sun at all, which I though was rather strange. Could
>this shadow have been from an NEA eclipse?
No, for a NEA, a few kilometers wide at most, to eclipse the sun would
mean to be veeeery close to Earth, to the point that all astronomers would
shout "run away!" and begin lining up at the Shuttle base :-)
Most likely, the "eclipses of the Sun's light" are relative to the pair of
asteroids. Orbiting around each other, they block the light of the Sun for
the other asteroid. But nothing that you could see from Earth.
Alfio
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:28 MST