See the Dramatic Increase in Near-Earth Asteroids NASA Has Discovered (Video)

Space.com ^ | July 24, 2018 | Mike Wall

[SunkenCiv]

Scientists have taken much better stock of our neck of the cosmic woods over the past two decades, as a new NASA video makes clear.

The animation maps out all known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) -- space rocks that get within about 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) of our planet's orbit -- from 1999 through January 2018, in roughly 10-year time steps. 

The differences are stark. In 1999, identified NEAs speckled the inner solar system thinly, in a light dusting. Many more were discovered by 2009, and Earth's neighborhood looks absolutely swamped in the present-day portion of the video.

But even that last frame doesn't impart just how crowded near-Earth space actually is. Astronomers have detected just 18,000 near-Earth objects (NEOs, a classification that also includes comets) to date, out of a population thought to number in the millions.

There's good news, though: NASA scientists have found and tracked about 95 percent of the potential civilization-enders out there -- rocks at least 0.6 miles (1 km) wide -- and none of them pose a threat to Earth for the foreseeable future.

The space agency's NEO Observations Program is also working to discover and track 90 percent of the NEOs that are at least 450 feet (140 meters) wide by 2020 -- a very ambitious goal laid out by Congress in 2005. It would take something of a miracle for NASA to do this on the prescribed timetable, however; scientists estimate that just one-third of the 450-footers out there have been spotted to date.

[SunkenCiv]

Nope, we're lucky large impacts don't happen more often.

[SunkenCiv]

;^)

[SunkenCiv]

I can live with a little clutter. :^)

[semaj]

I would think that the angle of impact is a decisive factor in how much energy is released.

[SunkenCiv]

No, it merely helps determine the shape of the crater.

[Darksheare]

Send Erf to its room.

[JimRed]

Global warmning...it draws them in like moths to a light...

[SunkenCiv]

LOL

[SunkenCiv]

We can try, but he’ll just leave the window open and call his friends.

[Darksheare]

This is true, and you see what that louse Jupiter does.

[right way right]

OH no!
I clicked and found out that it's not more asteroids, it's more discovered asteroids.
Woo boy, I feel better now.

[no-to-illegals]

Thank you so much for this thread. I’m going to my padded room and scream a whole heap

[SunkenCiv]

Hey, that’s what it’s there for. ;^)

[SunkenCiv]

And the number will be even higher next year. Assuming there is a next year. ;^)

[SunkenCiv]

If he tries something, we'll nail him because we have all those Jove's Witnesses.