Dark Asteroids Found Near Earth

"One object is as dark as asphalt..."

I have always wondered where the material goes when a pot hole forms.

The dead giveaway was the asteroid with the double yellow stripe on it.

It occurs to me that these dark asteroids may well be rich in carbon compounds, carbon being another one of those light elements that is conspicuously absent in the samples brought back from the moon, and another element absolutely essential to human life. If at some point these dark asteroids could be captured and shepherded into stable Earth-moon orbits, they might go a long ways towards making self-sustaining lunar and space colonies possible.

Think of the carbon tax you could get on that baby.

I for one would be worried about one of these dark ones KO-ing us without advanced warning.....scary stuff.

So, does anyone (so far) know how close is the nearest one to this planet, and do they cross our orbital path???????

On other notes: I wonder the source of these asteroids too......perhaps it's a Giant Zork turd floating around in space??? Know for their messy and unsanitary behavior.....***LOL***

They are still trying to get a handle on the dark and light ones.

Yes, it is kind of nerve racking now that we have the eyes to see. The good news is that now that our level of consciousness has risen on the subject, so has the interest in tracking, cataloging, and consideration of preventative measures.

The down side is that we are only just starting and we have already had a few surprises turn up in the way of unannounced flybys.

Did you see the news about the "dark star"? Believed to be the reason why comets are flung out of the Oort Cloud towards earth....

Eyes to see it... they're looking for it, so I expect they'll find it. They've already picked up one "brown dwarf" with the new infrared telescopes.

Just imagining here, before breakfast, what sort of life would evolve around a star that emits heat but no light...

<...what sort of life would evolve around a star that emits heat but no light...>

Something that didn't need to photosynthesise, probably.

Right, no photosynthesis. Maybe infrasynthesis?

No eyes, infrared sensors. Sound and chemical sensors important (ear, nose equivalents).

Just imagining a more earth-like habitat than the deep ocean vents - but good point Anon Hero, they are swarming with life and, on the most rudimentary level, chemotrophs are common - living off the minerals. Other deep ocean dwellers typically have reduced eyes and yet often have bright colours or light-emitting effects.

Could be a real disco, on a fictional planet warmed by the brown dwarf "Nemesis".

Most of Earth's life exists below the surface of the planet and a very significant amount of our living biomass lives below the ground.

"Just imagining here, before breakfast, what sort of life would evolve around a star that emits heat but no light..."

Look no further than deep sea ocean vents where superheated water powers a whole chain of life in the total absence of light.

Well I'm glad to see that the WISE telescope is fulfilling expectations to find dark asteroids. It would be interesting to try to do a chemical analysis to identify what these bodies are made of. But being non-luminous a remote spectral analysis would not be possible. So short of a rendezvous I cannot think of a way to find this out.

On another note, did anyone notice the article that Jupiter had an impact from another unknown object? There's many more potential impactors out there.

Dark spot, dark asteroid? maybe next time something in fuschia> BTW..the black blot is the size of earth.