JazzManJim
On the Downbeat
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2001
- Posts
- 27,360
I'm not a big alarmist, but this story did make me shiver.
On June 14th - just a few days ago - an asteroid passed inside the orbit of the moon and to withink 120,000 kilometers of the Earth.
That's not usually a big deal. Our planet is struck with debris from space regularly - thousand of strikes a day. In fact, six asteroids have passed inside the Moon's orbit in the time we've had our eyes trained on space. What makes this one particularly shiver-inducing was its size. At approximately 100 meters across, this asteroid (designated 2002 MN) was the largest object to get this close to us.
The good news is that this asteroid isn't considered large enough to do any world-wrecking damage. It is large enough, though, to ahve done damage on at least the scale of the Tunguska explosion in the early 1900s, which would easily have devastated a major metropolitan area or two if it had hit.
I know. You're not really bothered by this fact. Here's another good wrinkle for you. We didn't see 2002 MN until three days after its closest approach to the Earth. In other words, had 2002 MN hit us, we wouldn't have known a thing until the explosion.
Scientists are universal in their opinion that we will be struck by an object large enough to cause some real damage. Right now, there isn't another potential collision expected until the year 2050. Unfortunately, as with 2002 MN, there's a lot out there that we know nothing about, and what makes it a bit worse is that we're not even looking! Though they are running a good program NASA isn't looking for anything smaller than 1 KM across (in other words, a potential Earth-buster) and there's nothing at all in the Southern Hemisphere looking for such objects. At least three other non-governmental groups have their own searches going, but they're pretty hamstrung by either lack of funding or the inability to use the really big telescopes.
So what's the answer? Is this even worrying about? No, I don't think it'll keep me awake at night, but I'd feel a lot better if we were actually looking for things which could whack us from orbit and identify them in enough time to do something about them (which has also been bandied about as an excellent side-use for a orbital ballistic missle defense system).
On June 14th - just a few days ago - an asteroid passed inside the orbit of the moon and to withink 120,000 kilometers of the Earth.
That's not usually a big deal. Our planet is struck with debris from space regularly - thousand of strikes a day. In fact, six asteroids have passed inside the Moon's orbit in the time we've had our eyes trained on space. What makes this one particularly shiver-inducing was its size. At approximately 100 meters across, this asteroid (designated 2002 MN) was the largest object to get this close to us.
The good news is that this asteroid isn't considered large enough to do any world-wrecking damage. It is large enough, though, to ahve done damage on at least the scale of the Tunguska explosion in the early 1900s, which would easily have devastated a major metropolitan area or two if it had hit.
I know. You're not really bothered by this fact. Here's another good wrinkle for you. We didn't see 2002 MN until three days after its closest approach to the Earth. In other words, had 2002 MN hit us, we wouldn't have known a thing until the explosion.
Scientists are universal in their opinion that we will be struck by an object large enough to cause some real damage. Right now, there isn't another potential collision expected until the year 2050. Unfortunately, as with 2002 MN, there's a lot out there that we know nothing about, and what makes it a bit worse is that we're not even looking! Though they are running a good program NASA isn't looking for anything smaller than 1 KM across (in other words, a potential Earth-buster) and there's nothing at all in the Southern Hemisphere looking for such objects. At least three other non-governmental groups have their own searches going, but they're pretty hamstrung by either lack of funding or the inability to use the really big telescopes.
So what's the answer? Is this even worrying about? No, I don't think it'll keep me awake at night, but I'd feel a lot better if we were actually looking for things which could whack us from orbit and identify them in enough time to do something about them (which has also been bandied about as an excellent side-use for a orbital ballistic missle defense system).
