NASA WARNING!
A Newly Discovered Asteroid to Hit Earth this Week
Intro NASA has raised alarm all over the planet
with reports that a massive newly discovered Asteroid may impact Earth in the coming week.
While Asteroid impacts are nothing new, they must be taken seriously due to the immense
risk they pose if they land in a populated area.
Let’s take a closer look.
Asteroids Asteroids are rocky objects of various sizes
that are usually observed orbiting the Sun.
Even though they orbit around the star similarly to planets, they are much smaller in size.
Our Solar system is home to many asteroids, these objects date back to the formation of
our Sun and its orbiting planets.
Asteroids can be classified as leftovers that never had the chance to be incorporated into
any of those massive celestial bodies when they were formed 4.6 billion years ago.
The highest concentration of these objects can be found in the asteroid belt, a region
that is spread between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Since they orbit the Sun, many asteroids can also be found in the orbital paths of planets,
this results in an increased chance that the object may be influenced by the gravitational
force of the planet and result in an eventual collision.
Once an asteroid enters the Earth's atmosphere and survives, it is classified as a meteorite.
Dinosaurs roamed our planet for at least 180 million years before a massive 9-mile-wide
meteorite crashed into the Earth and abruptly ended their stay.
In addition to the dinosaurs, the impact also wiped out mammals and other marine and avian
reptiles.
The impact site turned into a massive crater at least 93 miles in size.
The surrounding areas experienced total devastation and the event triggered volcanic activity
which resulted in even more loss of life.
The resulting blast wave and heatwave plunged tons of debris up into the atmosphere where
it created a cloud large enough to block the Sun completely.
This resulted in a chain reaction that led to the eventual collapse of the entire ecosystem
of the planet.
Collisions With Earth Ever since Earth formed about 4.5 billion
years ago, asteroids and comets have routinely slammed into the planet.
The most dangerous of the asteroids that hit Earth are extremely rare.
An asteroid capable of global disaster would have to be more than a quarter-mile wide.
Researchers have estimated that such an impact would raise enough dust into the atmosphere
to effectively create a "nuclear winter," severely disrupting agriculture around the
world.
Asteroids that large strike Earth only once every 1,000 centuries on average.
Smaller ones that are believed to strike Earth every 1,000 to 10,000 years could destroy
a city or cause devastating tsunamis.
According to NASA, space rocks smaller than 82 feet will most likely burn up as they enter
Earth's atmosphere.
However, scientists are still eager to study any potential scenarios just in case such
a catastrophic situation arises.
Research conducted in 2017 looked at all possible outcomes based on 50,000 computer-simulated
impact sites all around the globe.
It was observed that the biggest threat to humans for the size of asteroids which were
simulated in addition to actually recorded encounters was the wind.
A study of the Chelyabinsk bolide event that happened in Russia in 2013 revealed that when
the asteroid disintegrated in midair, most of the injuries and damage reported were caused
by aerodynamic shock that knocked people down to the ground.
It also damaged windows and structures, the debris from which caused further indirect
injuries to people close by.
The biggest takeaway from studying this event was that the asteroid didn't even impact the
surface, most of the damage was caused by the forces of wind that were generated upon
entry into the atmosphere and the resulting pressure which kicked up debris.
The bigger the asteroid, the more likely it is to generate even more wind pressure that
can level entire towns and cities.
In addition to the wind, another significant threat to all life from an asteroid's impact
will be from thermal radiation.
The Tunguska event is another asteroid scare that happened in the Siberian region of Russia.
The asteroid exploded before impact and caused around 1250 miles of dense forests to fall
and set a further 186 miles of trees ablaze.
Luckily, Siberia is a region that was scarcely populated when the disaster took place back
in 1908, this prevented the loss of human life.
However, if a similar event happens today the damage and loss of life will be massive.
New Discovery An asteroid estimated to be the size of a
delivery truck is expected to fly by Earth on Thursday night.
It’s one of the closest approaches recorded.
The asteroid, dubbed 2023 BU and about the size of a box truck, has no risk of hitting
Earth, NASA said Wednesday.
It’s expected to zip 2,200 miles above the southern tip of South America, approximately
10 times closer than some communication satellites.
However, NASA believes that this asteroid does not pose as big a threat as some of the
other massive objects that have crashed into Earth throughout history.
Astronomers say that even if the asteroid did risk hitting Earth, it would turn into
a fireball and largely disintegrate harmlessly in the atmosphere, with some of the bigger
debris potentially falling as small meteorites.
The asteroid was discovered by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, discoverer of the interstellar
comet 2I/Borisov, from his MARGO observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea, on Saturday, Jan. 21.
Additional observations were reported to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) – the internationally
recognized clearinghouse for the position measurements of small celestial bodies – and
the data was then automatically posted to the Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page.
After sufficient observations were collected, the MPC announced the discovery.
Within three days, several observatories around the world had made dozens of observations,
helping astronomers better refine 2023 BU's orbit.
NASA’s Scout impact hazard assessment system, which is maintained by the Center for Near
Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California,
analyzed the data from the MPC’s confirmation page and quickly predicted the near miss.
CNEOS calculates every known near-Earth asteroid orbit to provide assessments of potential
impact hazards in support of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO).
While any asteroid in Earth’s proximity will experience a change in trajectory due
to our planet’s gravity, 2023 BU will come so close that its path around the Sun is expected
to be significantly altered.
Before encountering Earth, the asteroid’s orbit around the Sun was roughly circular,
approximating Earth’s orbit, taking 359 days to complete its orbit about the Sun.
After its encounter, the asteroid’s orbit will be more elongated, moving it out to about
halfway between Earth’s and Mars’ orbits at its farthest point from the Sun.
The asteroid will then complete one orbit every 425 days.
Planet Killer While 2023 BU may be harmless, observatories
around the planet have discovered several other candidates that could be catastrophic
if they crashed into Earth.
NASA has announced that a "planet killer" asteroid that is hiding in the glare of the
sun has finally been detected, and the giant space rock could smash into Earth one day.
The 0.9-mile-wide "potentially hazardous" asteroid, named 2022 AP7, is one of several
large space rocks that astronomers recently discovered near the orbits of Earth and Venus.
Currently, 2022 AP7 crosses Earth's orbit while our planet is on the opposite side of
the sun, but scientists say that over thousands of years, the asteroid and Earth will slowly
start to cross the same point closer together, thereby increasing the odds of a catastrophic
impact.
The asteroid was discovered alongside two other near-Earth asteroids using the Cerro
Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
To find the asteroids, astronomers trained the Cerro Tololo Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter
Telescope’s Dark Energy Camera on the inner solar system.
The sun's glare makes observations impossible for most of the day, so the researchers had
just two 10-minute windows of twilight each night to make their observations.
NASA tracks the locations and orbits of roughly 28,000 asteroids, following them with the
Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, an array of four telescopes that can perform
a scan of the entire night sky every 24 hours.
Since ATLAS was brought online in 2017, it has spotted more than 700 near-Earth asteroids
and 66 comets.
Two of the asteroids detected by ATLAS, 2019 MO and 2018 LA, actually hit Earth, the former
exploding off the southern coast of Puerto Rico and the latter crash-landing near the
border of Botswana and South Africa.
Fortunately, those asteroids were small and didn't cause any damage.
NASA has estimated the trajectories of all the near-Earth objects beyond the end of the
century.
Earth faces no known danger from an apocalyptic asteroid collision for at least the next 100
years.
But this doesn't mean astronomers think they should stop looking.
In March 2021, for example, a bowling ball-size meteor exploded over Vermont with a force
of 440 pounds of TNT.
Space agencies around the world are already working on possible ways to deflect a dangerous
asteroid if one were ever headed our way.
On Sept. 26, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft redirected the non-hazardous
asteroid Dimorphos by ramming it off course, altering the asteroid's orbit by 32 minutes
in the first test of Earth's planetary defense system.
Outro If you liked this video, you may also be interested
in this one which talks about a mysterious object that NASA has spotted near the ISS.
Do you think NASA should improve its asteroid deflection technology?
Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.