Re: Near earth asteroids...

[brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>]

At 13:27 9/5/98 -0400, you wrote:
>    ...  I've been
> trying to find data about the "near earth asteroid" scare sometime
> either in Feb. or March of 1998.  I know how much they were off by, but
> what I'm trying to find is how far away was the asteroid from the earth
> when they first discovered it....
> Dwight S.
> Ashland, OH
Using
 http://www.dogpile.com 
as a broadside search engine with asteroid as the key
 I soon found an enthusiast, Dr David DeGraaf at Alfred U, NY.

Here is his oped from the March 26 98 Rochester (NY) Memocrat & Guardian

 http://merlin.alfred.edu/degraff/oped_asteroid.html 

He mentions Brian Marsden's initial 88 day basis for the 1997XF11 near miss
orbit prediction.

One is tempted to email Brian Marsden at the Minor Planet Center,
Cambridge, Mass., but I could not quickly find you his email. 

David may be reached at
 david@merlin.alfred.edu

I expect you would find him informative on the initial distance of the
average 
134 M mile orbit.

Brian
 
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK