Due to the interest sparked by the upcoming flyby of 2012 DA14, I thought it would be helpful to place its flyby in an historic perspective. To do so, I put together a visualization of all the flybys of known asteroids in the 21st century:
This “Flyby Clock” illustrates the close-approach distance (both of the nominal “best fit” orbit, and of the range of orbits allowed by current measurement uncertainties) of the closest-passing known asteroids as arrayed on the face of a clock spanning the years 2000 through 2100. Also illustrated are the approximate relative sizes of each asteroid.… Continue reading...