Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Election Day, Tuesday, November 8th.  The sun will rise at 7:29.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 53 minutes, setting at 5:22.   The moon, 2 days before full, will set at 6:25 tomorrow morning.

Tonight a small asteroid will sail past the earth.  It may be small as asteroids go, but it’s a quarter mile in diameter.  The asteroid’s designation is 2005 YU55, and it will pass is within the orbit of the moon at 198,000 miles.  The moon’s average distance is 240,000 miles.  This is the kind of asteroid that is too small to be picked up by current searches in any great percentages.  Back in 2005 it was found after it passed the earth, not quite early detection.  The folks who track these things think that we’re safe from this one for the next 200 years or so.  If 2005 YU55 were to hit it would unleash the power of a hydrogen bomb of thousands of megatons of TNT.  [It would be devastating, but no radiation.  The dinosaur killer was tens of thousands of times larger.]

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.  Text in brackets omitted from program due to time constraints.