Bright lights in the sky

The Chelyabinsk asteroid over Russia in February 2013.

THERE'S been significant worldwide media interest in tomorrow morning’s flyby of asteroid 2012 TC4, which will make an unusually close pass to Earth at a distance of just 43,780 km -  that’s well inside the orbit of the Moon and closer than some satellites.

"We know the orbit of TC4 well enough to be absolutely certain that it won't hit Earth," assures Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California,"but we haven't established its exact path just yet."

The chunk of space rock is about as big (in the range of 10-20 m diameter) as the famous 2013 Chelyabinsk object which hit Earth without warning as the sun  rose over Russia’s Ural mountains on 15 February 2013.

As the space rock skimmed into the atmosphere the early morning sky lit up with a second ‘sun’ as shock waves shattered windows in hundreds of buildings around the wakening city.

It had impacted Earth literally ‘out of the blue’, flying in from the direction of the sun where no telescope could see it - and it took everyone by surprise.

Years later, meteorite hunters are still finding pieces of the ‘Chelyabinsk asteroid’ that rained down after its 17 m-wide body disintegrated in the atmosphere.

The difference with 2012 TC4, which could be up to 30 m wide, is that NASA knows it's coming. At 07:41 CEST (Central European Summer Time) tomorrow morning (12 October) it will pass 43,500 km above Earth’s surface, about 1/8th the distance to the Moon.

The flyby is so close, gravity will significantly alter the asteroid's trajectory before it exits the Earth-Moon system.

To get a better handle on the asteroid's orbit (and possible future encounters), an international network of telescopes will monitor 2012 TC4 as it speeds by.

Pinging the asteroid with its Goldstone telescope, NASA also hopes to learn much about the space rock's physical properties.

This asteroid is too small to see with the naked eye. However, skilled amateur astronomers using small telescopes will be able to observe it. At peak brightness, 2012 TC4 will shine like a 13th magnitude star as it zips through the constellations Capricornus and Sagittarius.

The house-sized space rock does afford space agencies across the globe an opportunity to test some of their planetary defence scenarios that might be needed if Earth was in the path of a more dangerous asteroid.

If an asteroid the size of TC4 or slightly bigger was on course to hit a populated area, agencies such as the ESA and NASA would look to warn people and work with relevant governments to potentially start an evacuation.

If anything signifcantly bigger the TC4 is ever detected, much more drastic action might be needed, including the possibility of trying to deflect any such asteroid before it collides with Earth.

On Earth as it is on Mars

The UAE (United Arab Emirates) confirmed plans this week to build a city called ‘Mars Scientific City’, a US$135 million (Dh500 million) project that will simulate life on the red planet on Earth.

The announcement was made on the first day of the Annual Government Meetings in Abu Dhabi and also coincided with the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) being held in Adelaide, Australia. Dubai will host the IAC in 2020.

The high-tech city will cover 1.9 million square feet, making it the largest space-simulation city ever built, providing a viable and realistic model to simulate living on the surface of Mars.

The project encompasses laboratories for food, energy and water, as well as agricultural testing and studies about food security in the future.

It will also include a museum displaying humanity’s greatest space achievements, including educational areas to engage young citizens with space and inspire a passion in them for exploration and discovery. The walls of the museum will be 3D printed, using sand from the UAE desert.

"We are seeking a better life and education as well as a stronger economy and the internationally most sophisticated infrastructure for generations to come," said His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

The Mars Science City project falls within the UAE’s objectives to lead the global scientific race to take people to Mars and is part of the country’s Mars 2117 Strategy which seeks to build the first settlement on Mars in the next 100 years.

The project seeks to attract the best scientific minds from around the world in a collaborative contribution in the UAE to human development and the improvement of life. It also seeks to address global challenges such as food, water and energy security on Earth.

The plan for the Mars Science City project includes an experiential element, which will involve a team living in the simulated red planet city for one year, involving a range of experiments are to be devised, which will lead to innovation around self-sufficiency in energy, water and food.

The Mars Science City structure will be the most sophisticated building in the world and will incorporate a realistic simulation environment replicating the conditions on the surface of Mars.

The city will consist of several domes, with innovative construction techniques providing support for the structures. A team of Emirati scientists, engineers and designers, led by a team from the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre and Dubai Municipality, will carry out the project, in cooperation with internationally renowned architects.

An inconvenient BBC

Perhaps I should not have been quite so astounded to hear on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme a week ago Lord Lawson, the former Conservative chancellor, being wheeled out again in the interests of so-called ‘balance’ on a climate change story.

In response to an interview with Al Gore an hour or so earlier, Nigel Lawson was largely unchallenged as he pedalled a series of untruths disguised as fact.

Despite overwhelming scientific opinion that human-induced climate change is heating up the atmosphere, melting glaciers and raising sea levels, Lawson was yet again given a prime slot by the BBC to shout down evidence in an unsubstantiated way.

He lightly dismissed the former US Vice-President Al Gore film The Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power saying it had "bombed" at the box office a week before it even went on general release (in the UK from today), adding that he would not "bother seeing it" either.

Listeners to BBC radio’s flagship news programme also heard Lawson, Britain’s most renown climate science sceptic, claim global temperatures have not been rising in recent years.

It was a lie which went completely unchallenged by the interviewer Justin Webb even though Lawson’s think tank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), was forced to admit immediately after the broadcast that the statement was based on data from an "erroneous" temperature chart.

Gore’s latest film describes how climate change is already having a significant effect on our planet but also says that the plunging cost of renewable energy might offer a viable solution.

The film points out the world’s average temperature has hit the highest on record for three years in a row – 2014, 2015 and 2016 – and highlights a significant increase in global extreme weather events.

But in his BBC interview Lord Lawson claimed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had "confirmed that there has been no increase in extreme weather events".

He then added: "As for the temperature itself, it is striking, he [Gore] made his previous film 10 years ago, and to the official figures during this past 10 years, if anything, mean global temperature, average world temperature, has slightly declined."

Afterwards the GWPF revealed the source of these supposedly ‘official’ figures was a meteorologist who works for a libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, founded by US billionaire and leading climate sceptic, Charles Koch.

For the UK’s leading broadcaster, there are worrying parallels between the BBC’s ‘balanced’ or ‘impartial’ coverage of climate change and other major issues of the day, such as Brexit.

Today, it is Nigel Lawson being portrayed as a so-called expert on climate change. Tomorrow, it is po-faced, right-wing Tories such as Ian Duncan-Smith, Liam Fox and Jacob Rees-Mogg intelligently moving the Brexit agenda towards a cliff-edge clean break.

In a sense the BBC’s policy of ‘impartiality’ is actually giving credence and currency to more extreme views and, because of this, we are inadvertently being fed a distorted reality, which some would call ‘fake news’. Either way this is ultimately is going to be a disaster for us all.

Spy satellite buzzes ISS

AMATEUR satellite observers are keeping a close eye on a US National Reconnaissance Office classified satellite (USA 276) to see whether it returns to the vicinity of the International Space Station (ISS).

After its launch into orbit from Cape Canaveral by SpaceX on 1 May 2017 analysts around the world quickly realised it was doing something more unusual.

Its orbit was similar to that of the Space Station and so could theoretically make close approaches to the orbiting outpost.

Then, just over a month after launch on 3 June, that is exactly what happened. "USA 276 made a close approach and effectively circled the ISS," reported satellite bserver Marco Langbroek of Leiden, The Netherlands. 

Amateur satellite watchers have been tracking USA 276 since late May and their observations have resulted in ever-improving estimates of the satellite's orbit. 

"With the latest data included, we can establish the moment of closest approach as 3 June 2017, 14:01:52 UT. It happened in daylight over the southern Atlantic north of the Falklands, near 43.75 S, 45.45 W, with a miss distance of only 6.4 ± 2 km,” says Langbroek.

In the accompanying chart (prepared by Langbroek) showing the circumstances of the encounter, the brick-coloured box has dimensions of  4 x 4 x 10 km and normally, whenever an object looks like it is going to pass through the box, ISS mission controllers evaluate the possibility of a collision avoidance manoeuvre.

"USA 276 remained just outside the 4 x 4 x 10 km box at closest approach and as a result collision avoidance manoeuvres were not required,” adds Langbroek.

Diagram prepared by Marco Langbroek showing encounter.

The question arises as to why a US spy satellite buzzed the ISS and senior satellite analyst Ted Molczan has published arguments for and against that possibility. "I am inclined to believe that the close conjunctions between USA 276 and the ISS are intentional," he says.

Molczan points out that USA 276 might be visiting the ISS to test Raven - a technology demonstration project on the ISS researchers are using to develop spacecraft autopilot systems.  Raven has visible, infrared and lidar sensors that can track incoming spacecraft, feeding the data to an onboard processor for decision-making about rendezvous and docking.

"I imagine that USA 276 could add to the Raven data set as follows," speculates Molczan. "If it can rendezvous, then it could keep station for long periods, during which it could change its attitude to present the sensors with a variety of views, under a variety of lighting conditions. The total data collected could potentially far exceed that from the other visiting spacecraft."

Another way of looking at the problem, is to ask why, if the ISS is not a target of USA 276, would the highly secretive NRO have permitted a launch so close to its plane, let alone one that yielded such close conjunctions not long after launch, which could only have increased public interest in the mission?

USA 276 looped around the ISS, according to an analysis.

Langbroek says he does not believe for a moment that the NRO was not aware that the launch on 1 May would lead to the ISS close approach a month later. “It would be extremely sloppy of them - from a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) viewpoint - if they were not aware, especially given how close the orbital parameters are to that of the ISS.”

He adds: “This event was sure to attract attention which harms the classified character of the mission. USA 276 is relatively bright and the approach was bound to be noted by independent observers.

“Indeed, some space enthusiasts in Europe unaware of the issue who were out to spot Dragon CRS-11 and Cygnus OA-7 close to the ISS on 4 June, did accidentally see USA 276 passing some three minutes in front of it.

At the time of the launch - and at the request of the NRO -SpaceX cut off launch coverage two minutes and 48 seconds after liftoff, some 30 seconds after the booster’s first-stage separated from the upper-stage. The NRO has declined to provide further details about the satellite or its orbit.

Langbroek also speculates that such a close approach of a high profile object like the ISS is politically risky too.

“As the ISS is an international cooperation which includes two parties (the United States and the Russian Federation) that are currently geopolitically on an uneasy footing, sending your military payload so close to the ISS as one party is eyebrow raising,” he says.