NASA emails reveal agency's surprise at asteroid's near-miss of Earth

axios ^ | 09/19/2019 | Jacob Knutson

[BenLurkin]

The asteroid, called "2019 OK," passed about 40,400 miles above Earth's surface — roughly 5 times closer to Earth than the moon — at 55,000 miles per hour and could have "created localized devastation to an area roughly 50 miles across" if it struck land, according to a NASA news release.

"An asteroid of this size coming this close to Earth is a pretty rare event — on the order of about twice a century," according to Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at JPL.

[Fai Mao]

A 50-mile disaster zone?

I’ve seen that movie.

https://youtu.be/6JE_im9tC1k

[dp0622]

Twice a century?

I hope the other one happened already too.

[major_gaff]

The asteroid, called "2019 OK," passed about 40,400 miles above Earth's surface

I find nothing OK about that...

[major_gaff]

Why it matters: The emails show that NASA officials believe the agency is lacking necessary infrastructure to reliably detect asteroids.

Ummm, maybe if NASA wasn't wasting money on the 'Man made global
warming hoax' they could up grade their infrastructure...just sayin'

[USAF1985]

I was briefing some JASON think tank PhDs on some space ops stuff a few months ago. One of them pulled me aside and let me know that in November the Earth will be passing through the same debris field that produced the 1908 Tunguska event. Has the potential to get pretty interesting.

[chrisser]

...in November the Earth will be passing through the same debris field that produced the 1908 Tunguska event.

Forgive my lack of knowledge on this subject and laziness in trying to find it myself, but do you know if this is the first time we will pass through that field since the 1908 event?

[plsvn]

but do you know if this is the first time we will pass through that field since the 1908 event?

We pass through this "field" once a year just as we pass through various comet debris fields once a year which cause meteor showers particular to that comet.

[COBOL2Java]

[COBOL2Java]

One of them pulled me aside and let me know that in November the Earth will be passing through the same debris field that produced the 1908 Tunguska event. Has the potential to get pretty interesting.

---

"The biggest interdimensional cross rip since the Tunguska Blast of 1908!"

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[GingisK]

...roughly 5 times closer to Earth than the moon...

That is a rather ignorant way of stating something is 1/5 the distance to the moon. We don't use a whole multiplier when describing a divisor.

[USAF1985]

Yes. The first time since 1908.

[USAF1985]

Sweet reference...but I’m not gonna go all inter-dimensional on anyone. Could be nothing, but could get a nice giant iceball all thrown at us again from the cosmos.

[dp0622]

Great.

Now i’ll be sleeping with one eye looking out the window till December :)

Maybe it will hit Tunguska again :)

[jmcenanly]

You'd think that the Russians would be very interested in locating potential Earth crossing asteroids, since they seem to get a lot of them.

[SunkenCiv]

thanks fmdj.

[bruin66]

Thanks. That drives me crazy.

[NormsRevenge]

55,000 mph? wow. That’ll leave a divot. 40K miles ain’t a lot.

[NormsRevenge]

55,000 mph? wow. That’ll leave a divot. 40K miles ain’t a lot.