Wednesday 06-17-15

Asteroid Icarus to skim past the Earth in rare 'distant pass'

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Asteroid Icarus (not pictured) will come within 21 lunar distances of the Earth

Icarus will not make a closer approach to the Earth until 2090

Asteroid Icarus, the kilometre-long spacerock named after the Greek mythological character that flew too close to the sun, will skim past the Earth on Tuesday night making a rare “distant pass” of five million miles.

According to Nasa, the asteroid 1566 Icarus will safely pass by the Earth at more than 21 lunar distances, which is 21 times the distance between form the Earth to the moon.
The next time the rock is set to approach the Earth at this kind of close distance will not be until 2090, when it will skim past marginally closer at 17 lunar distances.

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According to Slooh, the asteroid will be too dim to see through most domestic telescopes, but the community observatory will be livestreaming the Icarus’s distant passing of the Earth using its own robotic telescopes and cameras.
Icarus was one of the first near-Earth asteroids to be discovered when it was identified in 1949, and it apparently makes close approaches to the Earth in the month of June every nine, 19 or 28 years.

In 1968 the asteroid came as close at 16 lunar distances, or four million miles. A year earlier, ‘Project Icarus’ had been conducted at MIT in which a group of systems engineering graduate students were tasked with designing ways to deflect or destroy the asteroid should it ever be found to be on a collision course with Earth.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/kilometrelong-asteroid-icarus-to-skim-past-the-earth-in-rare-distant-pass-10323554.html


Government Debt to Reach 107% of U.S. Economy in 2040, CBO Says

U.S. government debt held by the public is expected to rise to 107 percent of the economy in 2040 from 74 percent this year, the Congressional Budget Office said, citing an aging population and rising health-care costs.
With debt “already unusually high” relative to gross domestic product, “further sustained increases could be especially harmful to economic growth,” the CBO said in a long-term fiscal report released Tuesday in Washington. “To put the federal budget on a sustainable path for the long term, lawmakers would have to make major changes to tax policies, spending policies, or both.”
The non-partisan agency kept its forecast for this fiscal year’s deficit at 2.7 percent of GDP. Stronger economic growth and constraints on federal spending will keep the shortfalls close to their current percentage of GDP through 2019, the CBO said.

Beyond that, higher interest rates and rising health-care and Social Security costs will boost spending, widening the deficit to 3.8 percent of GDP in 2025 and 6.6 percent in 2040, the agency said in the report.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-16/government-debt-to-reach-107-of-u-s-economy-in-2040-cbo-says