Thomas Willmitch

"There are between 1,000 to 2,000 asteroids out there that cross the Earth's orbit," said Tom Willmitch, the planetarium director at Illinois State University."Therein lies the threat."

The threatening cosmic bodies to which Willmitch refers are little more than big rocks drifting in space.Generally, they are bigger than meteors and differ from comets in that they are comprised mostly of rock, metals and silicates.Comets are big frozen iceballs.

"Asteroids are the building blocks of the solar system, leftover material from when the planets were being formed," Willmitch said."They can be big - miles across - or much smaller and they have been around, drifting in space since the solar system was born, 4.5 billion years ago."

Ceres is the largest known asteroid, with a diameter of 570 miles.It was discovered in 1801 and its orbit lies safely in the asteroid belt beyond Mars and is no threat to Earth, Willmitch said.

The number of Earth-approaching asteroids keeps growing.Just 20 years ago, astronomy textbooks consistently pegged the total at around 50, but the number has jumped, especially dramatically in the past five years, to the now commonly accepted 1,000 to 2,000.

But even that number continues to be extremely fluid, Willmitch said.

Does that mean there could be 5,000 collision-course asteroids out there?10,000?20,000?

"Those kinds of numbers would be far less likely," Willmitch said.

Each of these asteroids will suffer one of only two possible outcomes.Either it will crash-land into one of the terrestrial planets, or it will be flung out of the gravitational pull of the inner solar system.
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"The Earth-crossers cross into the Earth's orbit as they revolve around the sun," Willmitch said."Three in the last six months have whizzed past our ear."

The size of the asteroid dictates the level of damage it would do to the Earth.An asteroid in Tunguska, Siberia, on June 30, 1908, did not survive entry into Earth's atmosphere and still managed to explode with the equivalent force of a 10-megaton bang, flattening a large forest.Experts say the asteroid named 2002 MN, which passed closely by Earth just last month, probably was large enough to cause similar devastation.

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The prevailing scientific thought is that an asteroid collision with Earth likely killed the dinosaurs, Willmitch said.The dinosaurs weren't wiped out by the direct hit of what was likely a very large asteroid, but by the ensuing climate changes the catastrophic collision caused.

That type of mass extinction has happened four other times in Earth's history, some scientists believe.An asteroid that size collides with the Earth on average once every 100 million years, which means, Willmitch said, crunching the numbers, that Earth is "due" on average for the big one sometime within the next 35 million years.

"Or tomorrow afternoon," he said."There's just no way to say."

Using the latest asteroid-searching technology, NASA's Near Earth Object Program has calculated that an asteroid called 1950 DA has the best chance of any known of colliding with this planet.They've got it narrowed down pretty well.

March 16, 2880.
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And, Willmitch said, options do exist.Just as cosmic nudges occur in space that move asteroids into potential Earth collision orbits, so, too, could a man-made nudge - nuclear or whatever future ability mankind might create - could save the planet.

"It's not nutty science fiction to think that man can do something to alter the course of these asteroids if one threatens," Willmitch said.

That's the good news.

"Of course, that's just for the one's that we know are coming," he said.

That's the bad.

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"It's way out there," said Thomas Willmitch, director of the Illinois State University Planetarium.

All but one observatory in the United States accepts Pluto as the ninth planet, but Willmitch said he thinks Sedna will be considered too small to be the 10th planet.

"But it's just semantics," he said.
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As sky-viewing technology improves, more space objects are being identified, including chunks of ice and rock in what's known as the Kiper Belt near Pluto and the Oort Cloud farther out near Sedna, said Leake and Willmitch.
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"It shows we are redefining our knowledge," Willmitch said.

"No one alive today can tell us what to expect," said Thomas Willmitch, director of the planetarium at Illinois State University."It's more than cool."
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For a preview, Willmitch said use an ink pen to place a 2-millimeter circle on a piece of white paper.Tape it to a wall 17 feet away and see if you can find it.

Central Illinois sky-watchers will see the final stages of the transit just after sunrise at 5:25 a.m., he said.

But that finale should be one of the transit's most spectacular moments when Venus passes from the face of the sun and appears to transform into an oblong tear-drop shape, said Willmitch.The optical illusion is caused by light passing through Venus' atmosphere coupled with the ragged edge of the sun, he said.

When the next transit occurs eight years from now, Central Illinois should be in a position to see most of it, he added.

Protect your eyes
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The best is arc welder's glass rated at number 14 or higher, said Willmitch.
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They've been more than mere sky shows in the past, Willmitch and Leake said.
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Next week's transit is the latest in a series of recent astronomical events that have turned eyes skyward, Willmitch and Leake said.
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"It's been keeping us busy," Willmitch said.

"If we were to colonize a planet beyond Earth, Mars is a natural," said Thomas Willmitch, director of the Illinois State University Planetarium.

An earlier probe that merely orbited Mars indicated the planet has water, one of life's critical building blocks, below its surface, Willmitch said.
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Willmitch said just our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has 100 billion stars.Scientists think at least one star in every 10 may have planets orbiting them.

"Just playing the numbers game, we say there must be life, but we have yet to find any anywhere but Earth," said Willmitch, "It (life on Mars) would prove we are not unique."

If the object dubbed 2004FH had crashed into the planet at the speed of sound, the result would have been similar to the destruction caused by a nuclear bomb, said Thomas Willmitch, director of the Illinois State University Planetarium.

A city in its path would have been leveled, he said, and a tidal wave would have threatened coastal areas if it struck an ocean.

It passed just 26,500 miles from the earth's surface at its nearest point.That's near the orbits of earth's telecommunication satellites and just one-ninth the distance from Earth to the moon, Willmitch said.

A similar-sized asteroid crashed into Siberia in 1908, leveling hundreds of square miles of forests, he said.The blast was heard 600 miles away.

Climate also would be affected because dust thrown into the atmosphere would cool the planet for a time, he said.

The disappearance of the dinosaurs is blamed on climatic changes caused by a mountain-sized asteroid many times the size of 2004FH that struck the Earth about 65 million years ago.

Automated telescopes funded by NASA located the asteroid as it approached on Tuesday.

Earth may have as many as one close encounter every two years, but the objects' relatively small size and the darkness of space makes seeing them difficult, Willmitch said.

Earth and the asteroid may meet again sometime in the future, Willmitch added.

"No one alive today can tell us what to expect," said Thomas Willmitch, director of the planetarium at Illinois State University."It's more than cool."
...
Next week's transit is the latest in a series of recent astronomical events that have turned eyes skyward, Willmitch and Leake said.

"No one alive today can tell us what to expect," said Thomas Willmitch, director of the planetarium at Illinois State University."It's more than cool."
...
Next week's transit is the latest in a series of recent astronomical events that have turned eyes skyward, Willmitch and Leake said.

For more information or to register, contact ISU Planetarium Director Thomas Willmitch at 309/438-2496 or via e-mail at trw@phy.illstu.edu.

The Southern Aviator - 877-519-1672P.O. Box 39099Lakewood, WA 98439

I-S-U planetarium co-director Tom Wilmitch says there won't be much variance in daylight conditions during the eclipse.Wilmitch warns not to look at the sun directly.He says the safe way to watch is to cut a hole in a piece of cardboard.Looking directly at the sun can cause permanent eye damage.Wilmitch says the next solar eclipse won't be until 2307 and you'll only be able to see it in Africa.

Wind Chill Advisory for Northern CountiesSaturday, December 23, 2000 6:33PMA wind-chill advisory is in effect for Sunday (Christmass Eve) for counties in the northern portions of the WJBC listening area.

The National Weather Service expects temperatures to reach a high of only five-to-10 above.Those temps combined with northwest winds of 15-to-25 miles-an-hour could cause wind chill temperatures to fall to 30-to-40 degrees below zero.