{"id":6530,"date":"2021-12-04T13:28:36","date_gmt":"2021-12-04T13:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/?p=6530"},"modified":"2021-12-04T13:36:42","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T13:36:42","slug":"nereus-20211211","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/nereus-20211211\/","title":{"rendered":"Asteroid Nereus passes Earth on the 11th"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been stories going around of NASA warning that a giant asteroid, bigger than the Eiffel Tower, will break into Earth\u2019s orbit on the 11th of December and skim Earth.<\/p>\n

This huge 1082 foot (330 metre) space rock, which is as big as a football field, is heading our way and should skim past Earth on December 11, whizzing past us at about 14,700 miles per hour (23,657 km per hour).<\/p>\n

The object in question, Asteroid 4660 Nereus is about 0.3km in diameter (About the size of a football field) and is in the family of Apollo-class asteroids. Its orbital period around The Sun is 664 days.<\/p>\n

Although classed as a \u201cPotentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA)\u201d, there really is no need to panic.
\nIt will pass us relatively safely at a reasonable distance on that day.<\/p>\n

The closest that it will come to Earth is within 2.44 million miles (3,934,339 km), just over 10 times the distance of The Moon.<\/p>\n

Nereus will pass close to Earth again in 2031 and 2050, but a pass quite as close as this will not occur until 2060.<\/p>\n

So as an amateur, will it be possible to catch it as it passes by?
\nPossibly!<\/p>\n

According to my research, Nereus should reach about 12th magnitude at its brightest around this time.
\nSo it should be visible in a moderate telescope and easily captured on images.<\/p>\n

So I’m going to have a go at capturing it, if the weather allows, of course.<\/p>\n

It will be a faint star-like point moving in front of the more distant background stars, moving through a very familiar part of the sky, which will make it a bit easier to find.
\nIt will pass right across the bowl of The Plough during it’s closest approach.<\/p>\n

Path of Nereus from the evening of the 9th to the morning of the 12th of December.
\nClick on the maps for a closer view.
\n<\/strong><\/span>The asteroid approaches from top-right of the map, below Messier galaxies 81 & 82.
\nIt heads south east, passing just north of Dubhe, right across the bowl of The Plough and just north of Phecda.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Path of Nereus on the evening of the 9th & morning of the 10th of December.
\n<\/strong><\/span>Nereus is just south of Messier Galaxies 81 & 82 at 01:00h UT.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Path of Nereus on the evening of the 10th & morning of the 11th of December.
\n<\/strong><\/span>This should be the day when Nereus is at its brightest at 12th magnitude.
\nIt passes north of NGC3359 between 21:00h and 22:00h UT.
\nBy 05:00h UT it is passing just north of Dubhe the top Pointer Star in The Plough.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Path of Nereus on the evening of the 11th & morning of the 12th of December.
\n<\/strong><\/span>Nereus passes north of NGC3690 just after darkness falls.
\nSouth of NGC3795 just before 22:00h UT.
\nBy 05:00h UT it is passing just north of NGC3898.
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Nereus passes north of Phecda around midday on the 12th, but of course this will be daytime for us in the UK.<\/p>\n

The next evening, Nereus should have faded somewhat, but I have added the next evenings map, for those who may be able to pick up its faint light.<\/p>\n

Path of Nereus on the evening of the 11th & morning of the 12th of December.
\n<\/strong><\/span>Nereus passes north of NGC4102 just after darkness falls.
\nNorth of NGC4187 around midnight.
\nBy the time dawn starts to break it will be approaching NGC 4381 & NGC4357.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been stories going around of NASA warning that a giant asteroid, bigger than the Eiffel Tower, will break into Earth\u2019s orbit on the 11th of December…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"Asteroid Nereus passes Earth on the 11th - Star-Gazing","description":"There have been stories going around of NASA warning that a giant asteroid, bigger than the Eiffel Tower, will break into Earth\u2019s orbit on the 11th of December"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6530"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6540,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6530\/revisions\/6540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.star-gazing.co.uk\/WebPage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}