Types of orbit.

[esa.int]

It's so amazing to me that astronomers can detect these things and predict their orbit so precisely! That seems like a pretty small asteroid, but now I'm curious about the average size of a satellite, so I looked it up and it seems that satellites can be the size of a bus or smaller. I can see lots of them from my perch on the beach at night. So, I'm guessing that asteroid would have been visible with the naked eye as it passed at its closest point. Fascinating!

And precisely why did they not attempt to intercept this rock? It costs $10,000 per pound to lift material into space and capturing this asteroid could have provided material for shielding, material experimentation, and discovery of its composition. I wonder why they wasted this opportunity?

I'm pissed it didn't make a direct hit.