“OK, so what is a “barycenter” and why is it more than making a gazillion dollars or getting the Jobs Report this morning?“ Simple enough question and a somewhat complicated answer but possibly significant. We begin with the diagram at the JPL site of this inbound object 2005 YU55 which is due to visit local space between us and the moon on November 8th-9th. A NASA press release (March 10, 2011) explains more detail:
Near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass within 0.85 lunar distances from the Earth on November 8, 2011. The upcoming close approach by this relatively large 400 meter-sized, C-type asteroid presents an excellent opportunity for synergistic ground-based observations including optical, near infrared and radar data. The attached animated illustration shows the Earth and moon flyby geometry for November 8th and 9th when the object will reach a visual brightness of 11th magnitude and should be easily visible to observers in the northern and southern hemispheres. The closest approach to Earth and the Moon will be respectively 0.00217 AU and 0.00160 AU on 2011 November 8 at 23:28 and November 9 at 07:13 UT
Now, a 400 meter object is big enough to be a real pain should it hit something – since that’s 1,312 feet or, because it’s early, almost a quarter mile across.
BUT the good news is that it will miss Earth and likely miss the moon by a comfortable distance.
“OK, so why worry?”
Well, there’s the tiniest of chances that the Earth’s barycenter may be at risk. Wikipedia offers insight as does this drawing…
“The center of mass plays an important role in astronomy and astrophysics, where it is common referred to as the barycenter. The barycenter is the point between two objects where they balance each other; it is the center of mass where two or more celestial bodies orbit each other. When a moon orbits a planet, or a planet orbits a star, both bodies are actually orbiting around a point that lies outside the center of the primary (the larger body).[26] For example, the moon does not orbit the exact center of the Earth, but a point on a line between the center of the Earth and the Moon, approximately 1,710 km below the surface of the Earth, where their respective masses balance. This is the point about which the Earth and Moon orbit as they travel around the Sun.”
So far, so good. Earth and Moon are in a dance – but YU55 is transient, so no biggie….right?
It’s here that we come into the realm of advanced math, gravity wells, impacts of gravitational fields on orbits and what have you.
Our interest is piqued by a 1999 article in “The Astronomical Journal, 117:1086, 1999 February” where we find (P.3) that indeed, asteroids do have something to do with planet-sized objects, in this case Mars was being discussed, but pay attention to the highlight:
“Asteroid perturbations are the largest source of incompletely modeled perturbations of the planets, especially Mars and the Earth-Moon barycenter. Williams (1984) shows no less than seven asteroids capable of making periodic perturbations of more than a kilometer in MarsÏs position. The largest asteroid, Ceres, has only 0.13% the mass of Mars and is located within the asteroid belt itself. Hence, it and the other asteroids are much more sensitive to the perturbations of the asteroids than are the planets. Thus, to achieve high accuracy, the physical model for the asteroid ephemerides must include perturbations by other asteroids.”
About here, if the coffee is strong, you might be thinking “So YU55 at some very, very low level, could move the Earth-Moon barycenter….which might what….set off earthquakes, or something?”
Bingo! While most people would not directly connect the dots if a large quake were to occur a day or two after the passing of YU55, we find the emphasis on closing down coms and putting the voice of Fearless Leader all over the country next week, while the US Navy is offshore with Pacific Wave 11 (tsunami response drill, eh?) interestingly coincidental.
So for about the past 20-hours, I’ve been trying to find the definitive piece of science that would at least project any change in earthquake probability based on Earth-Moon barycenter perturbations by a passing (quarter-mile sized) object.
Haven’t found it yet, but that doesn’t mean the work hasn’t been done. I’d wager a dime….heck, maybe even a quarter….that someone has run out the numbers and although the EANS Test will likely be quite routine, the timing within 24-hours of YU55′s passage is at least notable.
How many inches or feet of barycenter would it take to trigger a significant quake this week? We don’t know that as our Cray is in the shop. Answer that and maybe we find out what the 22½ hours of predictive linguistic release language in a three or four day window which includes the passage through two or three days after, is all about.
No point doing further research since the meaningful data is about a week off and we’ll be going shopping…just in case.
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Yes, the spiders are out and yes, another run of the rickety time machine will be released in December (second week maybe). The good news is that the “data gap” seems to be resolving as almost a “wall” of high immediacy and short-term duration values. But, the bad news is that the release language that starts in March of 2012 just keeps going and going and going….
If you’re looking for when the Big Slide into either the undeniable/totally obvious part of the Second Depression becomes visible, or we’re off into the Second Dark Age, next spring seems like that will be where the big slide seems likely. Ask yourself “What would cause years of release language?”
Greater Depression, World War, Aliens show up, or massive Earth changes…something worthy of Cecil B. DeMille cinematography or Irwin Allen is what we’re talking. The December run will hopefully shed some light, but like YU55, the data is going to show up on it’s own anyway, so no point getting too worked up over it.
Besides what was going to be a 2½ minute test has been shortened to 30 seconds. Which is cool because I was wondering how long it takes to say “This is a test….” My suggested script?
“This is a test of the emergency action notification system. This is only a test. In the event of a real emergency, you would be buried in rubble, drowning, or already be powdered by the big blinding flash. But your government is all safe in bunkers and we wanted to share that with you by showing off our ability to communicate with possible survivors and reassure citizens that we’ll get to helping shortly when the danger is past. For now: Good luck. This concludes this test of the emergency action notification system. Have a nice day.”
Jobs Report
As expected, green shoots are popping out all over…..kinda, sorta….
Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend up in October (+80,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment in the private sector rose, with modest job growth continuing in professional and businesses services, leisure and hospitality, health care, and mining. Government employment continued to trend down.
Household Survey Data
Both the number of unemployed persons (13.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.0 percent) changed little over the month. The unemployment rate has remained in a narrow range from 9.0 to 9.2 percent since April.
We see in Table A-1 that the civilian labor force was up by 181-thosuand but the number of unemployed dropped only 95-thousand. Table 15 (U-6) shows the under and unemployed at 16.2%, somewhat improved.
But, in asking why I’m still not clear where the 104 thousand new jobs in construction since February have come from in the CES Birth/Death Model, but I’m slow and it is Friday, after all…
Pop Swap
Pepsico is reported swapping its mainland Chinese pop bottling operations for a part of the beverage side of Tingyi Holding (which does noodles and more).
Just our kind of “pop culture” development.
Corporate Governance Dept
Say, if you want to get a better sense of where the Security State merger of corporations taking over human government goes, check out the UK Guardian article on how the city of London is an “unaccountable corporation”. Ah, Kafka would be pleased.
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And for a clearer understanding how how corporations run your government these days, you might want to read the Jamie Dupree Washington Insider report over at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution site where he recounts CBS’ asking about House Speaker Pelosi and hubby being involved in the Visa IPO deal circa 2008 about when major credit card company legislation was going through the House. Or, Breitbart has video here… Oh, and John Boehner gets asked a parallel question about trading in healthcare related trades.
But, with the cozy relationship between the [gigantic] lobbying interests and people in office, what about having our “leaders” put everything in savings bonds while they’re in office? Seems to me the quickest road to riches shouldn’t run through Washington, know what I mean?
Perils of Detroit
Remember I told you we’d be keeping an eye on Detroit, since when we were up there in June, about one building in four in the downtown area was vacant. Well, comes now a report that about a hundred bus drivers won’t be making their runs this morning because they’re worried about teen mob attacks.
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Seems to me that OWS is pretty respectable, but coming along in a lot of big cities “feels” like a wave of low-level anarchy…it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out…. miht not help ATF sending guns to drug gangs, either.
In a way, it’s all reassuring, though. Yes, the world really is crazy.
Speaking of Nuts
Greece is still in turmoil…the referendum on the EU is off, if we follow this right, but only for now. Markets seem like they will be looking for direction after the nice pop yesterday...oil is firming and that usually means either war coming in the Middle East OR there’s a recovery out there somewhere.
More after this…
