Amateur Telescopes Can Track A Massive Asteroid Hurtling Past Earth This Weekend
Backyard astronomers will be able to use their telescopes to focus in on a massive cosmic visitor when it "skims" past Earth this weekend. On June 27 especially, a large asteroid known as (152637) 1997 NC1 will make a close but entirely harmless flyby in plain view, as long as you don't mind staying up to catch it and have the right equipment.
Discovered nearly three decades ago by the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking system in Hawaii, this asteroid is a titan compared to typical near-Earth objects. It's estimated to be between 750 and 1,650 meters (0.4-1.0 mile) across, making it roughly 60 times wider than the Chelyabinsk meteor that shattered windows across Russia in 2013. If an object of this magnitude were to collide with Earth, it would level cities, strip landscapes for hundreds of miles, and loft enough dust into the stratosphere to trigger a mini ice age....
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