Ho ho holy cow, that was a close call. An asteroid the size of a bus, discovered for the first time on Christmas Day, just squeaked by Earth, barely avoiding a disastrous impact.
The asteroid, dubbed 2017 YZ4, passed between the Earth and the moon at a distance of 139,433 miles which, in astronomical terms, is within an eyelash. And because it was discovered mere days ago, it is unlikely that anything could have been done to avert a collision if it were headed toward our planet.
To put into context how close it was, NASA identifies an asteroid as “hazardous” if it is within 4,600,000 miles of Earth.
The asteroid is the 42nd to pass between the Earth and the moon in 2017, and was discovered at Mount Lemmon Survey Observatory in Arizona, the Express reported.
“This is the first known asteroid to flyby Earth within one lunar distance since two such asteroids flew past us 35 minutes apart on November 21, and the 52nd this year,” a NASA spokesperson said.
“As of December 24, there are 17,495 known Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) around our planet; 17,389 are asteroids. This year, we discovered 1,985 new near Earth asteroids. There were 1888 such objects discovered in 2016 and 1,571 in 2015,” they said.
As the Daily Mail reported, Earth would not be able to do anything significant to mitigate damages with only days notice.
Currently Nasa would not be able to deflect an asteroid if it were heading for Earth but it could mitigate the impact and take measures that would protect lives and property.
This would include evacuating the impact area and moving key infrastructure.
Finding out about the orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass, composition and rotational dynamics would help experts determine the severity of a potential impact.
However, the key to mitigating damage is to find any potential threat as early as possible.
NASA classifies anything within six million miles of Earth as a “near Earth asteroid,” and it is currently working on ways to deflect an impact, the Mail reported.
Nasa is currently moving forward with a refrigerator-sized spacecraft capable of preventing asteroids from colliding with Earth. A test with a small, nonthreatening asteroid is planned for 2024.
This is the first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defence.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) would use what is known as a kinetic impactor technique—striking the asteroid to shift its orbit.
The impact would change the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity, but by doing so well before the predicted impact, this small nudge will add up over time to a big shift of the asteroid’s path away from Earth.
In 2013, a video of an asteroid in the skies above Chelyabinsk in Russia captured the eye of the Internet as it was shared frequently on social media.
That asteroid exploded with the force of 500,000 tons of TNT and injured more than 1,000 people.
A far more dangerous asteroid, named 3200 Phaethon, made its closest known approach to Earth at a distance of around 6 million miles — and it’s getting closer.
The 3.6 mile-wide rock is scheduled to swing by again in 2093, at a scary, but safe, distance of 1.8 million miles.
from The Federalist Papers http://ift.tt/2lsTqCV
via IFTTT Close Call – Bus Sized Asteroid Discovered on Christmas Barely Misses Earth http://ift.tt/2lsTqCV