Car-sized asteroid flew within 2,000 kilometers of Earth, the closest ever recorded, and NASA missed it
On Aug. 16, a space rock the size of a car zipped past Earth at a distance too close for comfort - roughly 1,830 miles. What is even more disconcerting is that NASA never watched it after it had happened.
A report by Business Insider cited, it was the closest ever recorded, according to asteroid trackers along with a catalog compiled by Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy.
The report said the space rock, because of its size, probably wouldn't have posed any danger to individuals on the floor had it struck our planet. However, it noted that"the close call is worrisome yet, because astronomers had no idea the asteroid existed till later it passed ."
"The asteroid approached undetected by the management of the sun," Paul Chodas, the manager of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told Business Insider. "We did not see it coming."
The space rock was initially discovered, about six hours after it flew by Earth, by the Palomar Observatory in California.
The record-breaking nature of the occasion was confirmed by Chodas:"Yesterday's closing approach is closest on record, should you discount some known asteroids that have really impacted our planet," the report quoted.
Based on this report, NASA is aware of only a fraction of all near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as this one, as many do not cross any telescope line of sight, and recently, many potentially dangerous asteroids have snuck up on scientists. If the wrong one slipped through the openings in our NEO-surveillance systems, it might kill tens of thousands of individuals, the report noted.
This recent near-Earth asteroid, originally called ZTF0DxQ, is now officially known to astronomers as 2020 QG. The Business Insider report said it first learned about it from the inventor of the website orbitsimulator.com, Tony Dunn.
Dunn tweeted on Monday:"Newly-discovered asteroid ZTF0DxQ handed less than 1/4 Earth diameter yesterday, making it the closest-known flyby which didn't hit our world," the report quoted.
Business Insider reported that"early observations indicate the space rock flew across the Southern Hemisphere only following 4 a.m. Universal Time (midnight ET) on Sunday." The report said, however, that the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center calculated that a slightly different trajectory, indicating the asteroid flew across the Pacific Ocean hundreds of kilometers east of Australia.
Not harmful, but it is unnerving.
According to the report, 2020 QG was not too dangerous, as far as space rocks are involved.
"Telescope observations indicate the thing is between 6 feet (two meters) and 18 feet (5.5 meters) broad - somewhere between the size of a small automobile and an extended-cab pickup truck," the report said. According to this"Impact Earth" simulator from Purdue University and Imperial College London, even though it had been on the greatest end of that spectrum and made of dense iron, as most asteroids are rugged, only tiny pieces of such an asteroid could have reached the earth, the Business Insider report mentioned.
Such an asteroid would have burst in the air.
Based on the report, an asteroid like this one, could have exploded in the air, making a brilliant fireball. The airburst unleashed would have been equal to detonating a couple dozen kilotons of TNT, or about the same as one of the atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945. However, to people on the ground, the airburst, that would have happened about two or three miles above the floor, would not have sounded any louder than heavy traffic, the report stated.
It does not take a massive rock to make a large problem.
But, the report mentioned that it doesn't require a huge space rock to make a big problem. In February 2013, a roughly 66-foot-wide asteroid exploded without warning Chelyabinsk, Russia, creating a superbolide event, that unleashed an airburst equal to 500 kilotons of TNT - roughly 30 Hiroshima atomic bombs' worth of energy,'' the report stated.
What's regarded as a"potentially hazardous" NEO?
"Potentially hazardous" NEOs are described as space objects that come in 0.05 astronomical units and measure more than 460 feet in diameter, according to NASA.
NASA is Reading the skies for these dangers, which Congress has required it to perform since 2005.
In May 2019, NASA said it had discovered less than half the estimated 25,000 items of the size or bigger, the report cited.
Things which come from the direction of sunlight, meanwhile - such as 2020 QG - are notoriously hard to spot, the report said.
"There's not much we can do about discovering inbound asteroids coming from the sunward direction, as asteroids are detected using optical telescopes only (such as ZTF), and we could only hunt for them in the night skies," Chodas said. "The idea is that we discover them on one of their prior passages by our planet, and make predictions decades and years in advance to see if they have any possibility of affecting," the report lent Chodas.
NASA has a strategy.
In line with the Company Insider report, NASA has a plan to address these gaps in its own asteroid-hunting program, also is at the first stages of developing a space telescope able to detect asteroids and comets coming from the sun's direction. Almost $36 million was allotted in NASA's 2020 funding for that telescope, called the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission.
A report by Business Insider cited, it was the closest ever recorded, according to asteroid trackers along with a catalog compiled by Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy.
The report said the space rock, because of its size, probably wouldn't have posed any danger to individuals on the floor had it struck our planet. However, it noted that"the close call is worrisome yet, because astronomers had no idea the asteroid existed till later it passed ."
"The asteroid approached undetected by the management of the sun," Paul Chodas, the manager of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told Business Insider. "We did not see it coming."
The space rock was initially discovered, about six hours after it flew by Earth, by the Palomar Observatory in California.
The record-breaking nature of the occasion was confirmed by Chodas:"Yesterday's closing approach is closest on record, should you discount some known asteroids that have really impacted our planet," the report quoted.
Based on this report, NASA is aware of only a fraction of all near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as this one, as many do not cross any telescope line of sight, and recently, many potentially dangerous asteroids have snuck up on scientists. If the wrong one slipped through the openings in our NEO-surveillance systems, it might kill tens of thousands of individuals, the report noted.
This recent near-Earth asteroid, originally called ZTF0DxQ, is now officially known to astronomers as 2020 QG. The Business Insider report said it first learned about it from the inventor of the website orbitsimulator.com, Tony Dunn.
Dunn tweeted on Monday:"Newly-discovered asteroid ZTF0DxQ handed less than 1/4 Earth diameter yesterday, making it the closest-known flyby which didn't hit our world," the report quoted.
Business Insider reported that"early observations indicate the space rock flew across the Southern Hemisphere only following 4 a.m. Universal Time (midnight ET) on Sunday." The report said, however, that the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center calculated that a slightly different trajectory, indicating the asteroid flew across the Pacific Ocean hundreds of kilometers east of Australia.
Not harmful, but it is unnerving.
According to the report, 2020 QG was not too dangerous, as far as space rocks are involved.
"Telescope observations indicate the thing is between 6 feet (two meters) and 18 feet (5.5 meters) broad - somewhere between the size of a small automobile and an extended-cab pickup truck," the report said. According to this"Impact Earth" simulator from Purdue University and Imperial College London, even though it had been on the greatest end of that spectrum and made of dense iron, as most asteroids are rugged, only tiny pieces of such an asteroid could have reached the earth, the Business Insider report mentioned.
Such an asteroid would have burst in the air.
Based on the report, an asteroid like this one, could have exploded in the air, making a brilliant fireball. The airburst unleashed would have been equal to detonating a couple dozen kilotons of TNT, or about the same as one of the atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Japan in 1945. However, to people on the ground, the airburst, that would have happened about two or three miles above the floor, would not have sounded any louder than heavy traffic, the report stated.
It does not take a massive rock to make a large problem.
But, the report mentioned that it doesn't require a huge space rock to make a big problem. In February 2013, a roughly 66-foot-wide asteroid exploded without warning Chelyabinsk, Russia, creating a superbolide event, that unleashed an airburst equal to 500 kilotons of TNT - roughly 30 Hiroshima atomic bombs' worth of energy,'' the report stated.
What's regarded as a"potentially hazardous" NEO?
"Potentially hazardous" NEOs are described as space objects that come in 0.05 astronomical units and measure more than 460 feet in diameter, according to NASA.
NASA is Reading the skies for these dangers, which Congress has required it to perform since 2005.
In May 2019, NASA said it had discovered less than half the estimated 25,000 items of the size or bigger, the report cited.
Things which come from the direction of sunlight, meanwhile - such as 2020 QG - are notoriously hard to spot, the report said.
"There's not much we can do about discovering inbound asteroids coming from the sunward direction, as asteroids are detected using optical telescopes only (such as ZTF), and we could only hunt for them in the night skies," Chodas said. "The idea is that we discover them on one of their prior passages by our planet, and make predictions decades and years in advance to see if they have any possibility of affecting," the report lent Chodas.
NASA has a strategy.
In line with the Company Insider report, NASA has a plan to address these gaps in its own asteroid-hunting program, also is at the first stages of developing a space telescope able to detect asteroids and comets coming from the sun's direction. Almost $36 million was allotted in NASA's 2020 funding for that telescope, called the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission.