frankuitaalst
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The bus sized asteroid 2012BX34 made a close approach to Earth last night , cominfg within less then 0.2LD to Earth . If you were an observer following Earth at ca. 0.15 LD ( trailing ) would you be able to predict the asteroid would be at a near collision course with Earth ? The animation hereunder starts about 100 days in the past and looks at Earth from a trailing point at 45.000 kms . The asteroid appears soon after the start of the animation at the high left in yellow . It then moves smoothly to the right , but then suddenly seems to turn its back ... The field of view is 145°. One frame last for 1.8 days . Time step was 2 hours . The moon appears as the silvery line moving from right to left . As the viewpoint is within the moons orbit ( 45.000 kms from Earth ) the moon passes behind the camera , so we can only see part of its orbit here. In order to focus on the asteroid the apperent size of the asteroid was magnified by more than 10000 times.
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