Free Republic

This is the warning of NASA-funded experts who investigated how telescopes nearly missed a 328-feet-wide asteroid that came within 43,500 miles of Earth back in 2019. The space rock, dubbed '2019 OK', was the first object of its size to get that close to our planet since 1908 — but it was only spotted 24 hours before its closest approach. The reason, the team determined, is because it was moving towards us in such a way that its motion across the night sky was counteracted by the Earth's spin. Thus — to early warning systems like Pan-STARRS1 at Hawaii's Haleakala...

AN ASTEROID the size of the World Trade Centre is on a dangerous Earth-bound orbit that could see the rock smash the planet during Christmas festivities. The asteroid, known as 216258 2006 WH1, is set for its closest approach to Earth on December 20 - just days before Christmas. The 540 metre space rock is the same size as the World Trade Centre and would cause a significant amount of damage and mass extinction. ... The asteroid hasn’t yet been measured on the Torio Impact Hazard Scale, but will likely be listed as a serious threat when and if it...

— Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, tweeted that a "big rock" is going to hit Earth, and that we "currently have no defense." But NASA, seems to disagree. Musk's tweet was a response to another by comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan, who shared an article reporting that NASA has begun preparations for the 1,100-foot-wide asteroid Apophis, which is scheduled to pass by Earth on April 13, 2029. Apophis named after an Egyptian god of death. Musk isn't wrong when he tweeted "Wouldn't worry about this particular one," though. Apophis is going to miss us by 19,000 miles. It's...

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.

Alan Duffy was confused. On Thursday, the astronomer's phone was suddenly flooded with calls from reporters wanting to know about a large asteroid that had just whizzed past Earth, and he couldn't figure out "why everyone was so alarmed." "I thought everyone was getting worried about something we knew was coming," Duffy, who is also lead scientist at the Royal Institution of Australia, told The Washington Post. Forecasts had already predicted that a couple asteroids would be passing relatively close to Earth this week. Then he looked up the details of the hunk of space rock named Asteroid 2019 OK....

Alan Duffy was confused. On Thursday, the astronomer’s phone was suddenly flooded with calls from reporters wanting to know about a large asteroid that had just whizzed past Earth, and he couldn’t figure out “why everyone was so alarmed.” “I thought everyone was getting worried about something we knew was coming,” Duffy, who is lead scientist at the Royal Institution of Australia, told The Washington Post. Forecasts had already predicted that a couple of asteroids would be passing relatively close to Earth this week. Then, he looked up the details of the hunk of space rock named Asteroid 2019 OK....

We weren't in danger of losing a chunk of our planet to asteroid 2019 OK, but it was detected just the day before it slipped past, and that's the worrying part. The European Space Agency had enough time to ask two telescopes in the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) to take a look at the asteroid right before its flyby. These aren't beauty shots. The asteroid looks like a dark blob, but the observations are helping us learn more about 2019 OK. We now know the asteroid flew by at a distance of just 40,000 miles (65,000 kilometers). Cosmically, that's...