Visibility From Earth
On January 31, 2012, Eros passed the Earth at 0.17867 AU (26,729,000 km; 16,608,000 mi), about 70 times the distance to the Moon, with a visual magnitude of +8.1. During rare oppositions, every 81 years, such as in 1975 and 2056, Eros can reach a magnitude of +7.0, which is brighter than Neptune and brighter than any main-belt asteroid except 4 Vesta and, rarely, 2 Pallas and 7 Iris. Under this condition, the asteroid actually appears to stop, but unlike the normal condition for a body in heliocentric conjunction with the Earth, its retrograde motion is very small. For example, in January and February of 2137, it moves retrograde only 34 minutes in right ascension. Its synodic period of over 846 earth days is among the largest of any body in the Solar System.
Read more about this topic: 433 Eros
Famous quotes containing the words visibility and/or earth:
“My children have taught me things. Things I thought I knew. The most profound wisdom they have given me is a respect for human vulnerability. I have known that people are resilient, but I didn’t appreciate how fragile they are. Until children learn to hide their feelings, you read them in their faces, gestures, and postures. The sheer visibility of shyness, pain, and rejection let me recognize and remember them.”
—Shirley Nelson Garner (20th century)
“The earth is the earth as a peasant sees it, the world is the world as a duchess sees it, and anyway a duchess would be nothing if the earth was not there as the peasant sees it.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)