- 3354 - ASTEROIDS - space rocks circling the Sun. Could one of these rocks slam into Earth? Just how many space rocks out there actually threaten our planet? Today NASA knows of zero asteroids large enough to do meaningful damage on Earth and currently on track to collide with our planet in the foreseeable future.
--------------------- 3354 - ASTEROIDS - space rocks circling the Sun
-
- There are large asteroids hanging around Earth? We've spotted plenty of them, and scientists are discovering new near-Earth asteroids practically daily, with more than 27,000 identified to date.
-
- While it may seem paradoxical, the constant rise in near-Earth asteroid tallies turns out to be the best news possible if you're worried about a potential asteroid impact.
-
- NASA's “Double Asteroid Redirection Test” (DART), launching later this month, November, 2021, is a mission designed to test the second stage of planetary defense, diverting a threatening asteroid from crossing paths with Earth.
-
- Before anyone can even try to divert an asteroid, scientists have to find the space rock and map out its orbit many years into the future to realize that it will or may hit Earth.
Keeping track of the asteroids, identifying them and finding them is really crucial toward being able to do anything about them in the future.
-
- Scientists have identified some 750,000 asteroids to date, but suspect there are millions of space rocks ricocheting through the full solar system. Plenty of those stay far, far from Earth. Most are residents of the main asteroid belt, the Trojan asteroids, that flank Jupiter in its orbit.
-
- If an asteroid really threatened the Earth, what would a planetary defense mission look like? Modern cameras and computer programs can bear much of the brunt of identification work needed to locate asteroids.
-
- One milestone was Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's impact of Jupiter in 1994, which unexpectedly left a mark in Jupiter's clouds the size of Earth that lingered for months. If that happened to Jupiter, what would happen if that hit Earth?
-
- Congress got on board with prioritizing asteroid hunting, calling on NASA to identify at least 90% of first the largest asteroids, then medium ones. Leading the charge today are programs like the “Catalina Sky Survey” based in Arizona that specializes in catching smaller asteroids, the “Pan-STARRS observatory” in Hawaii that excels at spotting faint objects, the “NEOWISE space telescope” that can see the whole sky and the “ATLAS telescopes” in Hawaii that are tuned to the fastest-moving objects.
-
- Asteroid hunters are looking forward to a few new instruments joining the team soon. The “Vera C. Rubin Observatory” in Chile begin observing in 2023; a space-based mission called “NEO Surveyor” is also in development and scheduled to launch later this decade.
-
- Surveys on their own aren't enough for planetary defense experts. Follow-up observations are crucial to give scientists the data they need to accurately calculate an object's orbit. We want to know where it's going to be in the future and whether Earth is going to be in the same place at the same time.
-
- Today, scientists track more than 2,000 potentially hazardous asteroids.
-
- If all those observations find that an asteroid is over a certain brightness (which suggests a certain size, although the two factors don't correlate precisely) and will come within 4.65 million miles of Earth, the object is automatically dubbed a "potentially hazardous asteroid“. That distance works out to one-twentieth of the average distance between Earth and the Sun.
-
- To those who dedicate their careers to watching the skies for an apocalypse, the asteroids not yet identified are far more terrifying; these asteroids are the ones that can pop up, suddenly uncomfortably close to Earth, too late for anyone to even try to change a rock's course.
-
- Scientists believe they've found nearly all the largest asteroids, those larger than 3,300 feet across. And while tiny near-Earth asteroids are plentiful and difficult to find, they are also the most likely to fall apart and burn up harmlessly in Earth's atmosphere. We call the “shooting stars”.
-
- It's the middle size category of asteroids, those more than 460 feet but less than 3,300 feet wide that most worries planetary defense experts. As of the end of 2020, estimates suggested scientists have found just 40% of near-Earth objects of this size; this year has added 500 to the tally.
-
- While that number is impressive, NASA's planetary defense office estimates that at the current pace, it will take scientists 30 more years to have identified 90% of objects this size. Let’s keep counting with our figures crossed.
-
--------------------------------- Other reviews available upon request:
-
- 3345 - ASTEROID IMPACT - deflect it before it hits? Scientists are tracking more than 27,000 asteroids circling around Earth's neighborhood of space. Experts in the field they call planetary defense know that just such an object killed off most of the dinosaurs, and they're determined to see to it that humans don't meet the same fate.
-
- 3097 - ASTEROIDS - start life on Earth? - When the Earth was first formed in he solar System with the other planets it was pummeled by asteroids. Thousands of these space rocks slammed into the young Earth, sometimes with a force powerful enough to vaporize the seas.
-
- 3091 - ASTEROID - near miss and a perfect hit? One of the larger stones that hit was about 5 centimeters long. Its crust is the remainder of the surface that got heated as the meteorite came through the atmosphere. “Winchcombe meteorite” may look a bit like a broken barbecue briquette, but to scientists, it is absolutely beautiful.
-
- 2948 - ASTEROID - touch down on Bennu asteroid? OSIRIS-REx launched into space in 2016 and reached the asteroid Bennu two years later. In the time since, the spacecraft has set records for orbiting the smallest object yet for a spacecraft, and in the tightest orbit to boot.
-
- 2939 - ASTEROID - sample return? - Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe zoomed past Earth on December 5th and dropped off a capsule containing bits of an asteroid, finishing a six-year round trip to an asteroid
-
- 2916 - ASTEROID - near miss? Many nearby stars will pass close to the Oort Cloud at the outskirts of our Solar System, but only one will move through it. In about 1.35 million years, Gliese 710 likely will gravitationally perturb millions of comets, sending a sizable number on a potential collision course with Earth.
-
- 2910 - ASTEROID - mining gold from asteroids? “16 Psyche” is an asteroid full of metal in the asteroid belt that could be worth $700 quintillion.. NASA plans to visit 16 Psyche by 2026. Could we be commercial mining faraway asteroids or should we start with the moon?
-
- 2722 - SPACETIME - at the macro and micro levels.? How Can Space and Time be Related?. Space and time seem to be absolute quantities to us. It is hard to see their interrelationship until you take their ratio as velocity and extend that ratio to its limits. Velocity is space / time!
-
- 2627 - ASTEROID - to hit Mother Earth. It is not an if, it is a when. Astronomers are tracking Near Earth Asteroids, NEAs. There are many, and each one needs to be identified with an orbit trajectory to learn if it will be a threat. OK, let’s just say they see one coming right at us. What then?
-
- 2595 - ASTEROID - Teacher’s Lesson Plan. The fastest spinning asteroid was discovered by an amateur astronomer, but using a professional telescope by remote control. This just became available to all teachers who want to teach some astronomy using the internet.
-
- 2332 - Asteroids, comets, and meteors are ice balls and rocks orbiting the Sun just like our planet. What we call these objects all depends on where the debris was formed in the accretion disk that rotated around the Sun when the planets were formed.
-
- 2314 - On December 18, 2018, an asteroid barreled through the atmosphere at a speed of 72,000 miles per hour , on a steep trajectory of seven degrees. Measuring several meters in size, the space rock exploded 16 miles above the Earth's surface, with an impact energy of 173 kilotons.
-
- 2296 - Asteroids are small, airless rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets. They are also known as planetoids or minor planets. In total, the mass of all the asteroids is less than that of Earth's moon. But despite their size, asteroids can be dangerous.
-
- 2250 - Asteroids visits and impacts. We have several spacecrafts visiting asteroids right now. January, 2019. This Review will summarize the current visits and then get into the history even some that are evident on the Earth and on the Moon.
-
- 2226 Asteroid Ryugu. Spacecraft landed on the surface on September 2018. What have we learned? The Japanese spacecraft is studying the asteroid named Ryugu. After over a 3 year journey the spacecraft has released rovers to the surface to make measurements. For the next 18 months, the spacecraft will probe, poke, prod and impact the asteroid, deploying the small lander and three rovers to hop along the surface.
-
- 2209 Asteroid Oumuamua from another solar system. If Oumuamua came from an extrasolar planetary system like our solar system, it is much more likely to have begun its journey as a comet. The ejection of an asteroid from an extrasolar system is much less likely and could involve a violent event such as the explosion of a star.
-
- 2203 Asteroid Bennu. Arrived December 2019 and will inspect every square inch of the asteroid before returning home in 2023.
-
- 2044 - Oumuamua is a needle shaped asteroid that will exit solar system. This Review lists 15 other reviews about asteroids.
-
- 1924 - Visitors from outer space. Asteroids and supernovae affect life on Earth. Detective work is looking at the evidence. Did the asteroid that struck the Yucatan Peninsula kill off the dinosaurs? Did supernova 1987 affect life on Earth?
-
- 1923 - In 2017 50 asteroids passed us at a distance closer than our Moon. When will a big asteroid hit the Earth? What is the mission that will land a spacecraft on an asteroid and bring back a sample of its surface? This mission to also to determine the likelihood of it impacting Earth. It comes by every 6 years.
-
- 1871 - Asteroids and their Trojan orbits. In order to predict asteroids trajectories we need to learn about their composition. Missions will soon visit two asteroids to learn more. Maybe, where life originated.
-
-November 23, 2021 - ASTEROIDS - space rocks circling the Sun 3354
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---
--- Some reviews are at: -------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
-- email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
--- to: ------ jamesdetrick@comcast.net ------ “Jim Detrick” -----------
--------------------- --- Tuesday, November 23, 2021 ---------------------------
--------------------- 3354 - ASTEROIDS - space rocks circling the Sun
-
- There are large asteroids hanging around Earth? We've spotted plenty of them, and scientists are discovering new near-Earth asteroids practically daily, with more than 27,000 identified to date.
-
- While it may seem paradoxical, the constant rise in near-Earth asteroid tallies turns out to be the best news possible if you're worried about a potential asteroid impact.
-
- NASA's “Double Asteroid Redirection Test” (DART), launching later this month, November, 2021, is a mission designed to test the second stage of planetary defense, diverting a threatening asteroid from crossing paths with Earth.
-
- Before anyone can even try to divert an asteroid, scientists have to find the space rock and map out its orbit many years into the future to realize that it will or may hit Earth.
Keeping track of the asteroids, identifying them and finding them is really crucial toward being able to do anything about them in the future.
-
- Scientists have identified some 750,000 asteroids to date, but suspect there are millions of space rocks ricocheting through the full solar system. Plenty of those stay far, far from Earth. Most are residents of the main asteroid belt, the Trojan asteroids, that flank Jupiter in its orbit.
-
- If an asteroid really threatened the Earth, what would a planetary defense mission look like? Modern cameras and computer programs can bear much of the brunt of identification work needed to locate asteroids.
-
- One milestone was Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's impact of Jupiter in 1994, which unexpectedly left a mark in Jupiter's clouds the size of Earth that lingered for months. If that happened to Jupiter, what would happen if that hit Earth?
-
- Congress got on board with prioritizing asteroid hunting, calling on NASA to identify at least 90% of first the largest asteroids, then medium ones. Leading the charge today are programs like the “Catalina Sky Survey” based in Arizona that specializes in catching smaller asteroids, the “Pan-STARRS observatory” in Hawaii that excels at spotting faint objects, the “NEOWISE space telescope” that can see the whole sky and the “ATLAS telescopes” in Hawaii that are tuned to the fastest-moving objects.
-
- Asteroid hunters are looking forward to a few new instruments joining the team soon. The “Vera C. Rubin Observatory” in Chile begin observing in 2023; a space-based mission called “NEO Surveyor” is also in development and scheduled to launch later this decade.
-
- Surveys on their own aren't enough for planetary defense experts. Follow-up observations are crucial to give scientists the data they need to accurately calculate an object's orbit. We want to know where it's going to be in the future and whether Earth is going to be in the same place at the same time.
-
- Today, scientists track more than 2,000 potentially hazardous asteroids.
-
- If all those observations find that an asteroid is over a certain brightness (which suggests a certain size, although the two factors don't correlate precisely) and will come within 4.65 million miles of Earth, the object is automatically dubbed a "potentially hazardous asteroid“. That distance works out to one-twentieth of the average distance between Earth and the Sun.
-
- To those who dedicate their careers to watching the skies for an apocalypse, the asteroids not yet identified are far more terrifying; these asteroids are the ones that can pop up, suddenly uncomfortably close to Earth, too late for anyone to even try to change a rock's course.
-
- Scientists believe they've found nearly all the largest asteroids, those larger than 3,300 feet across. And while tiny near-Earth asteroids are plentiful and difficult to find, they are also the most likely to fall apart and burn up harmlessly in Earth's atmosphere. We call the “shooting stars”.
-
- It's the middle size category of asteroids, those more than 460 feet but less than 3,300 feet wide that most worries planetary defense experts. As of the end of 2020, estimates suggested scientists have found just 40% of near-Earth objects of this size; this year has added 500 to the tally.
-
- While that number is impressive, NASA's planetary defense office estimates that at the current pace, it will take scientists 30 more years to have identified 90% of objects this size. Let’s keep counting with our figures crossed.
-
--------------------------------- Other reviews available upon request:
-
- 3345 - ASTEROID IMPACT - deflect it before it hits? Scientists are tracking more than 27,000 asteroids circling around Earth's neighborhood of space. Experts in the field they call planetary defense know that just such an object killed off most of the dinosaurs, and they're determined to see to it that humans don't meet the same fate.
-
- 3097 - ASTEROIDS - start life on Earth? - When the Earth was first formed in he solar System with the other planets it was pummeled by asteroids. Thousands of these space rocks slammed into the young Earth, sometimes with a force powerful enough to vaporize the seas.
-
- 3091 - ASTEROID - near miss and a perfect hit? One of the larger stones that hit was about 5 centimeters long. Its crust is the remainder of the surface that got heated as the meteorite came through the atmosphere. “Winchcombe meteorite” may look a bit like a broken barbecue briquette, but to scientists, it is absolutely beautiful.
-
- 2948 - ASTEROID - touch down on Bennu asteroid? OSIRIS-REx launched into space in 2016 and reached the asteroid Bennu two years later. In the time since, the spacecraft has set records for orbiting the smallest object yet for a spacecraft, and in the tightest orbit to boot.
-
- 2939 - ASTEROID - sample return? - Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe zoomed past Earth on December 5th and dropped off a capsule containing bits of an asteroid, finishing a six-year round trip to an asteroid
-
- 2916 - ASTEROID - near miss? Many nearby stars will pass close to the Oort Cloud at the outskirts of our Solar System, but only one will move through it. In about 1.35 million years, Gliese 710 likely will gravitationally perturb millions of comets, sending a sizable number on a potential collision course with Earth.
-
- 2910 - ASTEROID - mining gold from asteroids? “16 Psyche” is an asteroid full of metal in the asteroid belt that could be worth $700 quintillion.. NASA plans to visit 16 Psyche by 2026. Could we be commercial mining faraway asteroids or should we start with the moon?
-
- 2722 - SPACETIME - at the macro and micro levels.? How Can Space and Time be Related?. Space and time seem to be absolute quantities to us. It is hard to see their interrelationship until you take their ratio as velocity and extend that ratio to its limits. Velocity is space / time!
-
- 2627 - ASTEROID - to hit Mother Earth. It is not an if, it is a when. Astronomers are tracking Near Earth Asteroids, NEAs. There are many, and each one needs to be identified with an orbit trajectory to learn if it will be a threat. OK, let’s just say they see one coming right at us. What then?
-
- 2595 - ASTEROID - Teacher’s Lesson Plan. The fastest spinning asteroid was discovered by an amateur astronomer, but using a professional telescope by remote control. This just became available to all teachers who want to teach some astronomy using the internet.
-
- 2332 - Asteroids, comets, and meteors are ice balls and rocks orbiting the Sun just like our planet. What we call these objects all depends on where the debris was formed in the accretion disk that rotated around the Sun when the planets were formed.
-
- 2314 - On December 18, 2018, an asteroid barreled through the atmosphere at a speed of 72,000 miles per hour , on a steep trajectory of seven degrees. Measuring several meters in size, the space rock exploded 16 miles above the Earth's surface, with an impact energy of 173 kilotons.
-
- 2296 - Asteroids are small, airless rocky worlds revolving around the sun that are too small to be called planets. They are also known as planetoids or minor planets. In total, the mass of all the asteroids is less than that of Earth's moon. But despite their size, asteroids can be dangerous.
-
- 2250 - Asteroids visits and impacts. We have several spacecrafts visiting asteroids right now. January, 2019. This Review will summarize the current visits and then get into the history even some that are evident on the Earth and on the Moon.
-
- 2226 Asteroid Ryugu. Spacecraft landed on the surface on September 2018. What have we learned? The Japanese spacecraft is studying the asteroid named Ryugu. After over a 3 year journey the spacecraft has released rovers to the surface to make measurements. For the next 18 months, the spacecraft will probe, poke, prod and impact the asteroid, deploying the small lander and three rovers to hop along the surface.
-
- 2209 Asteroid Oumuamua from another solar system. If Oumuamua came from an extrasolar planetary system like our solar system, it is much more likely to have begun its journey as a comet. The ejection of an asteroid from an extrasolar system is much less likely and could involve a violent event such as the explosion of a star.
-
- 2203 Asteroid Bennu. Arrived December 2019 and will inspect every square inch of the asteroid before returning home in 2023.
-
- 2044 - Oumuamua is a needle shaped asteroid that will exit solar system. This Review lists 15 other reviews about asteroids.
-
- 1924 - Visitors from outer space. Asteroids and supernovae affect life on Earth. Detective work is looking at the evidence. Did the asteroid that struck the Yucatan Peninsula kill off the dinosaurs? Did supernova 1987 affect life on Earth?
-
- 1923 - In 2017 50 asteroids passed us at a distance closer than our Moon. When will a big asteroid hit the Earth? What is the mission that will land a spacecraft on an asteroid and bring back a sample of its surface? This mission to also to determine the likelihood of it impacting Earth. It comes by every 6 years.
-
- 1871 - Asteroids and their Trojan orbits. In order to predict asteroids trajectories we need to learn about their composition. Missions will soon visit two asteroids to learn more. Maybe, where life originated.
-
-November 23, 2021 - ASTEROIDS - space rocks circling the Sun 3354
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Comments appreciated and Pass it on to whomever is interested. ---
--- Some reviews are at: -------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com -----
-- email feedback, corrections, request for copies or Index of all reviews
--- to: ------ jamesdetrick@comcast.net ------ “Jim Detrick” -----------
--------------------- --- Tuesday, November 23, 2021 ---------------------------
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