THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM

70 Falmouth Street Portland, Maine 04103

43.6667° N 70.2667° W Altitude: 10 feet below sea level Founded January 1970

2021-2022: C

“Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you’ll be a mile from them, and you’ll have their shoes.” -Jack Handey.

THE DAILY ASTRONOMER

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

April Fool's Asteroid

April Fool's Day would be the worst time for an asteroid strike! Try to warn people about the impending impact and you would elicit little more than annoyed skepticism. "Seriously! You can't think of a better April Fool's jes than that?!" someone might snap at you while ignoring the oblong shadow growing along the ground.

So, here goes!

A Potentially Hazardous Asteroid is due for a near-miss on April Fool's Day. This careening space rock will tumble precariously close to Terra Firma, but will not hit us, hence the term "near miss."

We personally object to the term "near miss," which is terribly mis-leading as it suggests a strike that almost missed, but didn't. Case in point: that Rock on Oscar night. Of course, the entire previous paragraph was a bit misleading. This asteroid, dubbed 2007 FF1, won't come any closer than 4.6 million miles on the national prank day. In other words, it will be 18 times farther away from us than the Moon: not much of a near-miss, even by asteroid standards.

Measuring 360 feet by 656 feet, 2007 FF1 will be speeding along at the devil-may-care pace of 29,800 miles per hour. Granted, this asteroid would wreak some havoc were it to actually hit Earth, although it wouldn't end the Anthropocene the way that 10-mile wide asteroid laid waste to the Cretaceous about 66 million years ago. All the same, we are all the better for this "near-miss."

Classified as an Apollo asteroid, or Earth-crosser, 2007 FF1 is regarded as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA) because it has the potential to become an Earth impactor at some point during its myriad close approaches to Earth. Orbital analysis has not revealed any specific impact dates. However, as is true with many Earth-crossers, 2007 FF1 could prove problematic in time.

However, on April Fool's Day, 2007 FF1 will tumble harmlessly by our beautiful planet before receding into the unbounded colliered night. Although, on April 1st, feel free to point to the sky and proclaim that an asteroid will be swooping in for a visit. Let us know what type of reaction you elicit.

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