[meteorite-list] Fwd: Is asteroid 2004 MN4 the rocket body from Surveyor 3 probe?

[Robert Verish]

Merry Christmas to you, Francis, and to all of my
other friends and family in Pittsburgh, PA!  -  
Go Steelers!!  

Bob V.
P.S. -
Here is a forward of a post by one of my Group members
that you may find interesting:

---------------- Forward Message -------------------
To:"Debris Locators"<debris-locators at yahoogroups.com> 
From: "Ian Kluft" <ik-yahoo at thunder.sbay.org>  
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 02:58:17 -0800 

Subject: [debris-locators] Is asteroid 2004 MN4 the
rocket body from Surveyor 3 probe? 

    
Some of you may have seen the news story on Friday
about the asteroid "2004 MN4" which said that it has a
greater than 1% chance of colliding with the Earth in
2029.  It was rated Level 4 (out of 10) on the
"Torino Scale", a state of alert which had never been
reached before.

I used an online orbit simulation at a NASA web site
to look at this. (I'm not an astronomer so I don't
know those calculations myself.)  I ran it backwards
to look for previous encounters with Earth.  I found
one around April 16-19, 1967.  That coincides with the
April 17, 1967 launch of NASA's Surveyor 3 lunar
probe.  I posted info and links at
  
http://www.kluft.com/~ikluft/opinions/2004mn4-surveyor3.html

So that adds a possibility that 2004 MN4 could be a
leftover rocket body from Surveyor 3.

If anyone knows astronomers who are working on 2004
MN4, please send this along and make sure this is
included among possibilities they're considering.


------------------ Original Message -----------------
[meteorite-list] Asteroid 2004 MN4 Update - December
24, 2004
Francis Graham francisgraham at rocketmail.com 
Sat Dec 25 10:50:16 EST 2004 


> Today's impact monitoring results indicate that the 
> impact probability for April 13, 2029 has risen to >
about 1.6%, which for an object of this size 
> corresponds to a rating of 4 on the ten-point Torino
> Scale. 

   In case anybody was curious, April 13, 2029 is in
fact a Friday the 13th.

Francis Graham