Talk:"Armageddon" rock misses Earth by Moon's distance

Wrong time, again!

Amateur astronomers with 6-inch telescopes would be able to follow the speeding space debris in Europe and North America at its closest approach to the planet at 5.25 a.m. GMT.

First of all, astronomical events use UTC, not GMT.

Next, the source says "5.25am tomorrow, UK time" and the UK is currently using BST (UTC + 1), not GMT (or more accurately, UTC - 0).

Then, another source says "XP14 will come closest at 12:25 a.m. Monday". Based on the location, the time zone reported there is EDT (UTC - 4).

So UK (BST) to UTC would be 1 hour difference. Since BST is one hour ahead, subtract one hour. That's 4:25 a.m. UTC. To check, knowing EDT time is four hours behind UTC, add four hours to 12:25 a.m. to get 4:25 a.m. Both sources confirm the same time UTC, which is 4:25 a.m. Karen 01:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. The style guide says UTC time omits the colon, eg. 1730 UTC. Would this be 425 UTC or 0425 UTC for a morning time? Ealturner 12:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd make it 0425 (always four digits). You're right, I probably should have made it read "0425 UTC". I deliberately went outside at the time it came closest to Earth, even knowing I wouldn't be able to see it. I just enjoyed knowing it was out there. Karen 06:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"gravity tractor"

I always wanted one, What do u do with it? -Edbrown05 10:31, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a tractor beam. --Deprifry|+T+ 11:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

It's sorta like a tractor beam, but it works by placing (in front of and slightly to the side of the moving object) a mass along the trajectory of the thing you want to move off-course and "leading" it away. Getting it into place requires a slowing down maneuver from the tractor object. The only good use for it is providing slight course correction for unpiloted objects. Karen 06:09, 4 July 2006 (UTC)