Threat Of Earth-Destroying Asteroid Must Be Taken Seriously Says Head Of NASA

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The greatest threat to life on Earth may come from space

The head of NASA recently warned that now is the time to take the threat of an Earth-destroying asteroid seriously.

On Thursday 29th April an asteroid, estimated to be between 1.1 and 2.5 miles wide and officially classed as a “potentially hazardous object”, skimmed past Earth.

Known as (52768) 1998 OR2, the asteroid zoomed past at around 19,000mph, making its closest approach this morning.

NASA has also warned that next month two more ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroids are due to come our way.

In 2019 NASA’s administrator Jim Bridenstine expressed concerns that similar warnings have in the past prompted amusement adding that asteroid collisions were more common than people believed.

Sky News reports: In the planetary defence exercises this week, simulating a global response to an Earth-destroying meteorite, NASA’s first step will be to precisely measure the object’s speed and trajectory.

After that, a decision will have to be made: attempt to prevent the collision by deflecting the asteroid, or evacuate the area it could crash into.

Planetary defence and astronomical experts have warned against humanity destroying large asteroids with nuclear weapons out of the concern that they would simply shatter into smaller dangerous pieces.

A scientific study released in March poured cold water on the film theory that humans could simply blow up an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, and found that blasted away fragments from the asteroid would be likely to reform with it because of gravity.

The most likely response is to evacuate the area which the asteroid is expected to collide into, especially if the asteroid is smaller than 50m (164ft) across.

Mr Bridenstine noted three devastating asteroid impacts which had occurred over the last century.

The most recent he mentioned occurred in 2013, when a meteor exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, injuring hundreds of people.

It briefly outshone the sun and inflicted severe burns on observers below, as well as smashing windows and rattling buildings.

Researchers say a more solid rock would have caused greater damage and casualties.

The Chelyabinsk meteor was at its brightest and hottest when it was 18 miles above the Earth. Its speed at this point has been calculated at 40,000mph, or 11.6 miles per second.

That means a rock that was initially the size of a double-decker bus was travelling at 20 times the speed of a bullet.

It was the largest object to hit Earth since the Tunguska event of 1908, when an exploding comet or asteroid destroyed 2,000 square kilometres of Siberian forest.

8 Comments

  1. Wow was that badly written. Must have been a NASA intern! This asteroid pass 16.4 lunar distances (LD) from the Earth! Meanwhile 2020 HS7 passed 0.1 LD, 2020 HP6 passed 0.3 LD, 2020 HT8 passed 0.4 LD and half a dozen other ones passed around 1LD or less!!

    These kinds of articles are rubbish!
    .

  2. Don’t worry about the global disaster of Covid-19 or “President” Biden if we are going to be wiped out anyway by a small deviation of trajectory.

  3. No it doesnt .It would have to be absolutely enormous to be a threat So huge we could all see it coming from our back patios .

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