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Asteroids Near-Miss with Earth! They were Passing Undetected Inside the Belt of Satellites (+Video)
Asteroids Near-Miss with Earth! They were Passing Undetected Inside the Belt of Satellites
Three asteroids small enough to escape detection missed the Earth the last days.
On January 10th the asteroid 2016 AQ164 had a near miss with Earth at a distance of 0.3 LD (104,718 km)
The next asteroid (2016 AH164) made a close approach on January 12th in just 0.07 LD (2,991 km)
The asteroid escaped earlier detection by approaching from the direction of the Sun, which hid it from observation. It did enter the night sky when it passed the Earth, but initially was moving too fast to be picked up by automated survey cameras.
Only when it was far enough from the Earth that it moved slowly across the stellar background did the ground-based telescopes discover it.
Asteroid 2016 AN164 zips past Earth at a distance of 0.1 LD (19,447 km)
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/
http://neo.ssa.esa.int/web/guest/close-approaches
http://spaceweather.com/
Tracking smaller asteroids is almost impossible, mainly because there are so many of them – ten million in Earth’s neighborhood, according to David Morrison, a NASA scientist.
The Minor Planet Center receives up to 15,000 new observations every day from one powerful telescope in New Mexico alone. An informal network of amateur astronomers around the world does much of the follow-up observation work.
While they are not potential Earth killers, smaller asteroids can cause considerable harm. “Any asteroid larger than 50 meters [164 feet] is a threat to the place it hits,” Morrison said.
In 1908 an asteroid believed to be about 60 meters (197 feet) in diameter exploded in the atmosphere over Siberia. The resulting shock wave knocked down trees for hundreds of square miles.
An asteroid made of iron, on the other hand, would crash through the atmosphere intact and plunge into Earth. If it fell in the ocean, it could create a giant tsumani that could threaten coastal cities.
Clips credit: ESO, ESA/HUBBLE &NASA
