Andromeda

Step closer to the blog, little readers, we've got some news that must remain just between us. 2004 VD17 is going to crash into the Earth! Possibly! In 96 years! Maybe! But the gubmint doesn't want you to know that. That is why neither the NEODyS folks nor the JPL people are updating their impact calculations. Yes, that's right, new observations from yesterday and today have not been used for impact calculations even as of right now (17:30 UT). Compare the 740 observations in the NEODyS Object Home Page to the 735 observations in the NEODyS Impact Risk page. The Daily Updates come out at 7:30 UT -- plenty of time for the calculations to have been redone for both NEODyS and JPL.

JPL has also updated their calculations -- other than their public "Impact Risk" calculations -- showing a minimum distance of 0.000020 AU yesterday, and 0.000016 AU today with the new observations. Telnet to telnet://horizons.jpl.nasa.gov:6775/ and see for yourself.