2010 AL30 Close Approach
What’s fascinating about near Earth objects is that they suddenly appear out of nowhere. This little missive – 30ft in diameter – circles us every 365 days (precisely and perhaps co-incidentally) and yet nobody knows what it is or where it came from. It passed between us and the moon recently. Had it hit the Earth, it would have exploded safely above us with the force of a small nuclear bomb.
And it’s not alone – this wayward traveler. It has over 2 million friends.
When I heard about AL, I experienced a kind of wild excitement. I wanted it to be a UFO. Ever since I was a little boy, when things weren’t going well for me, I always imagined I would be whisked by Aliens to far off planets. The beings there would teach me new and amazing things about the universe, our place in it and possibly even reveal the existence and whereabouts of God.
When I eventually read the Barney and Betty Hill abduction story (in “The Interrupted Journey”) I was 15 and a little jealous. They got to ride in a spaceship. A 30 foot spaceship – much like 2010 AL30. Maybe it’s not a meteor, space junk or just a wayward rock. Maybe it’s a dead spaceship.
Like many of our Solar System’s most tantalizing “co-incidences” :
- The moon is almost perfectly covers the sun during a solar eclipse
- The dark side of the moon always faces away from us (this is actually because the heavier elements in the moon have fallen Earthside).
- A human female’s menstrual cycle matches the phases of the moon.
- Our planet is situated in the perfect location for life on Earth.
Might AL be a dead ship caught in the flotsam and jetsom that floats between Earth and the Sun? Perhaps it’s a container like the one in Clarke’s “Rendezvous with Rama?” I’m kinda hoping it’s something interesting. It’s getting a bit boring down here, Guys. Can you give us a show or something?
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