Posted on 10/02/2017 10:06:26 AM PDT by Red Badger
An asteroid the size of a house will pass very close to Earth later this month, giving scientists a chance to try out their planetary defence system.
The asteroid, known as 2012 TC4, was first spotted by the Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii in 2012, but its orbit meant that it could not be tracked.
Early observations indicated that it could come as close as 4,200 miles from the Earth's surface - well within the ring of geostationary satellites - on October 12.
However, new observations by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile reveal that it will miss our planet by 27,000 miles - roughly one-eighth of the distance to the Moon - which is still very close in astronomical terms.
The asteroid is estimated to be between 30 and 100 feet (10 to 30 metres) in size, and is travelling at about 30,000 mph (14 kilometres per second).
If an asteroid of this size was to enter our atmosphere, it would have a similar effect to the Chelyabinsk meteor, which exploded in an air burst over Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, in February 2013.
The meteor generated a bright flash and produced a hot cloud of dust and gas. The bulk of the object's energy was absorbed by the atmosphere, but some eyewitnesses felt intense heat from the fireball.
Scientists plan to use the close flyby of 2012 TC4 as an opportunity to test out their planetary defence system, in preparation for a real asteroid threat.
"Scientists have always appreciated knowing when an asteroid will make a close approach to and safely pass the Earth because they can make preparations to collect data to characterise and learn as much as possible about it," said NASA program scientist Michael Kelley.
(Excerpt) Read more at mirror.co.uk ...
A tidal wave in my bathtub?
Not big enough to rate capital letters.
Q. What could possibly go wrong?
A. It could miss Mecca.
NASA plans to test out DART on a pair of asteroids named Didymos A and B, which are scheduled to make a "distant approach" to Earth in October 2022.
No, your toilet. ; )
LOL
Dang!
I wish I thought of that.
It would be pretty funny if it hit a North Korean satellite. Imagine the fat slob bloviating about that one
“one-eighth the distance of the Moon”
All right! Kudos to the headline writer for NOT writing the usual “eight times less than the distance of the Moon.”
Well if you ask me perhaps it’s time for her mother to wipe out it’s inhabitants and let it here and start over
yep , Global Warming is sucking them in
Something like this is what is a threat to humanity, not CO2.
Meteor strikes are the cause of mass extinctions, not plant food.
Not yet..................
One hiccup and the dinosaurs will be extinct again.
This made me think what would happen if a baseball-sized piece of this hit Mecca. Considering the extent of the damage & what those people might believe about is scarey.
“We have a planetary defence system?”
Clintoon gave it to the Little Rocket Man.
Aaargh,l! Can we stop dumbing down science and just use cubic meters and kilograms so everyone can understand the joules of energy released should such a body hit the earth?!
I’m so tired of hearing the stupid side of earthlings refer to things as “the size of a house”, “the size of a bus”, “three times as large as the Hiroshima bomb”, “weighing more than fifteen elephants”, etc., it is just stupid to assume some jackass in the MSM even knows what that means, so we ought to be hitting back with really comprehensible information.
I always want to ask, “who’s house?”, “what kind of bus”, “African or Asian elephants - male or female, and how old?”.
This faux science reporting drives me crazy because of the assumed ignorance of the viewers, when the talking heads are even less informed about what they read on their teleprompters.
Oh, my! The size of a house!?! EVERYBODY PANIC!!!
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