Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Tuesday, October 4th.  The sun will rise at 7:43.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 34 minutes, setting at 7:18.   The moon, 1 day past first quarter, will set at 1:16 tomorrow morning.

In the last couple of years the WISE satellite, an infrared survey satellite, has been primarily mapping targets for the James Webb Space Telescope proposed to be launched later this decade.  As a bonus was the discovery of a great number of asteroids including Near Earth Objects or NEOs.  The survey concluded that there are most likely fewer threatening asteroids of all sizes that had been estimated before.  That’s definitely good news.  However the numbers of asteroids less than 300 meters in diameter is still pretty much unknown.  That’s the size of the Apothis asteroid that will pass under the geostationary satellite orbits in 2029.  Asteroids that size are still killers, such as the rock that made the crater in Arizona, and another the Tunguska event in Siberia.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.