Earth Just Narrowly Missed Getting Hit by an Asteroid

Popular Mechanics ^ | 8/30/2016 | Avery Thompson

[Beave Meister]

On Saturday, astronomers discovered a new asteroid, just a few hours before it almost hit us.

The asteroid is called 2016 QA2, and it missed the Earth by less than a quarter of the distance to the moon. That puts it about three times as far away from Earth as our farthest satellites. And we never saw it coming.

So how did 2016 QA2 sneak up on us like that? For this particular asteroid, the answer seems to be that it has a very peculiar orbit. It's highly elliptical, which means it can usually be found hanging out by either Mars or Venus, but rarely ends up near Earth.

But another, more worrying reason is that there aren't a lot of people looking for potentially dangerous asteroids. While Congress has tasked NASA with finding 90 percent of asteroids 450 feet or larger by 2020, the agency is nowhere close to that goal. Funding for asteroid detection is very low, and most telescopes that could detect asteroids of this size won't come online for a few more years.

[Flavious_Maximus]

The first destruction will come by water (The Flood), the next destruction will come by fire.

[GreenHornet]

If it had hit Detroit, it would have caused millions of dollars worth of improvements.

[Delta 21]

It is an asteroid. It would have become a meteor if it entered the earths atmosphere. Then a meteorite if it impacted earth

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .

[Carl Vehse]

[xp38]

It just didn’t have enough support

[Twinkie]

Some Bible scholars believe that most of the things in
Revelation HAVE already happened. WWI saw a huge area of
“No Man’s Land” where every tree and blade of grass was
devastated. - WWII saw the atomic bomb dropped and the
“huge mountain burning with fire” coming to pass. - WWIII
is prophesied to see a HUGE number of people killed in the
Battle of Armageddon (blood up to the horses’ bridles).
Some think that modern armaments, helicopters and such are
described in Revelation in the best way a person of that
era could describe them. - There are more things to come &
we can see them lining up every day. MARANATHA!

[Twinkie]

In the words of Christ, “FEAR NOT!!”

[UCANSEE2]

not something that would be part of Nasa’s near earth object detection program.

SPACEWEATHER.COM. Scroll down to NEAR EARTH ASTEROIDS. 2016QA2 is listed right there.

[tumblindice]

Assterrhoids cause pain to Mother Gaia.

[UCANSEE2]

The first destruction will come by water (The Flood), the next destruction will come by fire.

[Mad Dawgg]

"The asteroid is called 2016 QA2, and it missed the Earth by less than a quarter of the distance to the moon. That puts it about three times as far away from Earth as our farthest satellites. And we never saw it coming."

When considering Celestial bodies and distances that is like a missile missing your home by flying in the space between the street in front of your house and the your front door.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Luckily its only 130 feet across.

[xzins]

one third is also one out of three plants, or species, etc.

if the sun or moon turning to blood is referring to its appearance color, then the same could be true of water.

[Jack Hammer]

My luck, it’ll land on my roof.

[jsanders2001]

> If it had hit Detroit, it would have caused millions of dollars worth of improvements.

LOL

[Taffini]

3 new goals of NASA

[Ozark Tom]

Double diameter of Chelyabinsk—eight times the mass—potentially eight times the energy of 500 kt.

[GreyFriar]

Darn, a hit could have saved us from having to decide to vote for Hillary or Trump!