2/19/2023 0 Comments Nasa asteroid watchThe DART mission spacecraft will reach its target in September, 2022. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which launched last year, will involve slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid far away from Earth to see whether humans could push a space rock out of the way in future if it seemed like it was going to strike our planet. Scientists are also preparing for a future event in which an asteroid impact on Earth would be imminent. Around 900 of these are more than one kilometer, or 3,280 feet, in size. An asteroid similar in size to the Golden Gate Bridge will whip past our planet this weekend the largest and fastest asteroid to pass by Earth this year. Today, scientists track more than 28,000 near-Earth asteroids as they travel through the solar system. The agency's planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson called it a "cosmic wake-up call." About 1,600 people were injured, mostly due to broken glass, according to NASA. When it exploded, the asteroid released a shock wave that blew out windows over 200 square miles. Six Amazing Facts About Neptune and Its Moons.Strange Glass Balls Found on Moon Hint at Asteroid Impact.Government Release UFO Videos Amid Changing Attitudes In February 2013, an asteroid that NASA had described as "house-sized" exploded in the skies over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk after entering Earth's atmosphere at around 40,000 miles per hour. Still, even relatively small asteroids can have serious consequences. 2022 ES3 certainly meets the distance requirement, but it falls short in terms of size. Specifically, asteroids that can't get any closer to Earth than around 4,650,000 miles or are smaller than about 500 feet in diameter aren't considered PHAs. In order for an asteroid to be classed as a potentially hazardous asteroid, or PHA, it must meet certain criteria regarding size and how close it could get to our planet. The asteroid is predicted to be somewhere between 33 and 72 feet in diameter-about as wide as the length of a bowling lane. Asteroid Isn't Considered HazardousĪstronomers don't consider 2022 ES3 to be potentially hazardous, probably due to its size. An Italian astronomy organization called the Virtual Telescope Project, which often tracks asteroids and other space objects through the sky, is due to host a livestream of what it calls 2022 ES3's "very close, but safe, encounter with us" on its WebTV page starting at 18:30 UTC on March 13th. The event provides a great viewing opportunity. Instead, it will pass by at a distance of about 206,000 miles, which is about 87 percent of the distance between us and the moon. The space rock isn't expected to hit Earth. ET on Sunday, March 13, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). The asteroid, called 2022 ES3, will be traveling at 41,000 miles per hour when it comes between the moon and the Earth at around 2:18 p.m. An asteroid is set to zoom past Earth at a relatively close distance this week, and the event can be viewed live. An example is the Double Asteroid Redirection (opens in new tab) Test (DART) that will seek to alter the path of an asteroid's moonlet in the fall of 2022.įollow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter Follow us on Twitter Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Facebook (opens in new tab). While we have no impending threats to worry us yet, NASA continues to conduct research just in case. NASA has a network of partner telescopes in space and on the ground constantly on the hunt for NEOs, however, and manages the efforts of potentially hazardous ones through the agency's Planetary Defense Coordination Office (opens in new tab). The mission should meet this goal by 2036 NASA had originally hoped to complete the work by 2020. The agency is working to fulfill a mandate from Congress (opens in new tab) to seek and report at least 90 percent of all NEOs 460 feet (140 meters) and larger, and plans to launch a dedicated mission into space by 2026, called NEO Surveyor (opens in new tab). Crash! 10 biggest impact craters on Earth An asteroid barely missed Earth last week, and no one knew it was coming
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