A fast-moving space rock called 2012 DA14, will pass about 17,200 miles from Earth’s surface on Feb. 15. It’s only about 150 feet across, so astronomers say will not likely see it passing overhead,  but it will be closer than the communications satellites that ring the planet, 22,000 miles away.

NASA scientists have calculated the orbit of 2012 DA14, and they say claim are very sure the 150 foot asteroid will miss Earth. They point out that there are dust-sized pieces of debris plowing harmlessly into the atmosphere all the time; we see some of them as shooting stars at night.

Impacts like the one that may have wiped out the dinosaurs, some 65 million years ago, are separated by tens of millions of years. That event was tens of millions of years ago.

“But it has happened and it can happen again,” said Humberto Campins of the University of Central Florida. “So as a species it is important we learn all we can about asteroids in case we have to deflect one. And there are other reasons for us to investigate. Asteroids could provide precious resources both to Earth and to space travelers, and they hold secrets to how our planet and life on it formed.”

IN 1908, a 330-foot meteor exploded in the atmosphere above the Tunguska River in Siberia, with an impact 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The force was enough to destroy an area the size of San Francisco. Of course, that’s just a theory. Others believe it was scientist/tinkerer/genius Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower experiment gone wrong.

“Once we find an asteroid,” Edward T. Lu, a physicist and former astronaut who flew two space shuttle missions and spent six months on the International Space Station, said “it is possible for us to predict its trajectory. We know the government wants to discover asteroids big enough to wipe out the planet, but we also want to find those that could wipe out a city the size of New York, or Hong Kong, or Houston.”

“For every one we know about, there are about 100 more we don’t know about,” Lu said. “We have to find the other 99.”

With an expected dark sky (waning moon) the Geminids meteor shower will give a bright and early preview of the upcoming apocalypse peaking on December 13 & 14, 2012, with some stragglers lasting until the 17th. Most meteor showers are from comet remnants, but the source of the Geminids are, as they say, ‘shrouded in mystery’, but probably caused by an asteroid named ‘3200 Phaethon’.

Photo courtesy meteorshowersonline.com

The first observations of this particular shower occurred in the 1830s, so they are a fairly recent celestial event, only 160 years old. The average rate of meteor fall is around 40 per hour, but in recent years it has been closer to 80, even 120 in an hour. They are ‘slow’ moving, and tend to have a yellow hue in their trails.

There will be a ‘new moon’, meaning that the moon (and its light) will not be visible for this event. The best viewing hours are typically 1:00 am through 3:00 am, and the further you are from ‘light pollution’ the better the view. Get away from the glow of city lights and toward the constellation from which the meteors will appear to fall from for the best view.

There may also be a new, coinciding event with debris from a comet named Wirtanen, found in 1948. Scientists do not expect a world-wide catastrophe as presented in 1984’s film, ‘Night of the Comet’, about a pair of Valley Girls (played by Catherine Mary Stewart & Kelli Maroney) who survive in a world of zombies, produced by falling red dust from the comet, from Wirtanen’s debris.

(At least that what they tell us)