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How to Watch the City-Block Sized 2002 AM31 Asteroid Fly by Earth Live Today

Jul 22, 2012 04:16 PM

Earth with a large asteroid in the foreground.

Later today, an asteroid the size of a city block (about 3,000 feet wide) called 2002 AM31 will fly by the Earth. It will still be about 3.2 million miles away, so there's nothing to be worried about, but you can watch it make its journey in real-time online.

Orbital diagram of asteroid 153958 (2012 AM31) showing its path relative to Earth and other planets.

Orbit diagram of asteroid 153958 (2002 AM31) showing its path relative to Earth and Venus.

2000 AM31 now, as seen from the JPL Small-Body Database Browser

The Slooh Space Camera will be posting a live feed from the Slooh Telescope in the Canary Islands. The show will start at 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time and they'll be speaking with Bob Berman of Astronomy magazine, Prescott Observatory's Matt Francisco, and Slooh's own Patrick Paolucci.

Star trails captured in a night sky photograph.

Image Credit com.com

Photo of asteroid 2002 LZ1 captured by Slooh last month

You can watch the flyby event of 2002 AM31 at Slooh. Again, the show starts at 4:30 p.m. PT (7:30 p.m. ET), but if you miss that, there will be another telescope tracking the asteroid from Arizona at around 8 p.m. PT (11 p.m. ET). If you manage to catch any good screenshots, be sure to share them with us!

Computer artwork by Detlev Van Ravenswaay

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