1950 DA orbital elements
Posted: 14.08.2003, 00:09
by JackHiggins
1950 DA may hit earth & kill us all in 2880- anyway, I was wondering, does anyone have orbital elements for the time of the hit? Horizons only goes to 2199...
(by the way, I realise theres a good chance it wont hit, but I'm just looking to find orb elems of the estimate which says it will)
Posted: 14.08.2003, 01:24
by selden
Jack,
Where did you learn this?
That would suggest one place to start.
As best I can tell, the orbital elements really aren't sufficiently well defined to be able to predict it at all accurately that far in the future.
Posted: 14.08.2003, 14:23
by JackHiggins
selden
Have a look at
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/1950da/
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/1950da/animations.html
http://echo.jpl.nasa.gov/~ostro/da/
I first read about it on one of the space news sites about a year ago...
and there are many, many other pages dealing with this object too. I know the chances of impact are small (less than 1 in 300 or so I read) but I haven't seen any ssc's for any objects, showing what a real impact might look like.