Toutatis - The Giant Asteroid

By James Anthony
Picture Credit: NASA

Now we don't want to frighten anyone … well, not too much anyway … but on Wednesday 29 September an asteroid the size of a small city is going to pass by Earth at more than 108,000 kilometres per hour.

At 4.6 kilometres long by 2.4 km wide it is a planet killer - you know the Doomsday chunk of rock that will spell the end of life on this planet - and would punch a hole into Earth the size of Australia.

Fortunately, expert astronomers say that while Toutatis will be the closest a massive lump of space rock has been to Earth in more than 700 years - it will miss us by about a million miles.

To increase the comfort levels of readers that is about four times the distance from us to the Moon. By space standards that is still regarded as being close, although experts don't seem to be raising too much of a sweat over it.

Discovered in 1989, Toutatis is a regular guest in our part of the galaxy and makes an appearance every four years. Its orbit around the Sun goes all the way from the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars to its closest point to Earth that lies within our own cosmic path.

As asteroids go Toutatis is a strange-looking rock that has been described as being peanut shaped and is even weirder in that it has not one, but two, axes of rotation.

That means that instead of turning in a regular spiral Toutatis spins at two different speeds, anywhere between 5.4 and 7.3 Earth days.

Its trajectory through space is like a mistimed torpedo pass that wobbles along on a hard-to-predict criss-crossing path.

The asteroid is named Toutatis after one of the oldest and most powerful Celtic/Gallic gods - that of fertility, war, and wealth. As a side note, British Celts used to sacrifice children to Toutatis by drowning them in giant cauldrons.

And speaking of ancient customs those readers of the Asterix comic book series will remember that Toutatis was the God Asterix and his mates called upon to save them from having the sky fall on them.

If you are into star gazing and want to check out Toutatis then a small telescope, or pair of binoculars, will do the trick on a dark night. Experts say that with a telescope you may just be able to track Toutatis, which is expected to look like a point of light, moving slowly against stars. A time-lapse photo of the area should capture the asteroid's path.

The best night to try your luck at spotting Toutatis will be 28 September when it will pass by Alpha Centauri - the bottom pointer of the Southern Cross - between 10pm and midnight.

And if we survive its passing next Wednesday then mankind can breathe easily for at least another 558 years as Toutatis won't come so close to us again until 2562.