Astronomy Picture of the Day - Orbits of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 29 Aug, 2021 | Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Are asteroids dangerous? Some are, but the likelihood of a dangerous asteroid striking the Earth during any given year is low. Because some past mass extinction events have been linked to asteroid impacts, however, humanity has made it a priority to find and catalog those asteroids that may one day affect life on Earth. Pictured here are the orbits of the over 1,000 known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). These documented tumbling boulders of rock and ice are over 140 meters across and will pass within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth -- about 20 times the distance to the Moon. Although none of them will strike the Earth in the next 100 years -- not all PHAs have been discovered, and past 100 years, many orbits become hard to predict. Were an asteroid of this size to impact the Earth, it could raise dangerous tsunamis, for example. To investigate Earth-saving strategies, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is planned for launch later this year. Of course rocks and ice bits of much smaller size strike the Earth every day, usually pose no danger, and sometimes creating memorable fireball and meteor displays.

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[MtnClimber]

Note that the process of viewing a magnified image is described in Post #1.

[hellinahandcart]

Wow. It looks like a Spirograph.

[EEGator]

You stole my post...

[DannyTN]

The orbit of earth is the brightest ring. We're doomed!!!

Possibilities:

• Asteroids are attracted to stupidity.
• It wouldn't look so bad, if you included the unhazardous asteroids.
• The sun is actually the nucleus of a very very heavy element.
• Just a little nudge here and there could be very enteratining.
• If we learn how to maniupulate gravity we could make planets out of those.
• If we place energy collectors on all the astroids does that constitute a dyson shere?

[Farmerbob]

Reminds me of fishing...

[DannyTN]

Sphere not shere,

[DannyTN]

LOL!

Yep just cut the line and start over.

[telescope115]

One will bring the “ Fire and Brimstone”. Don’t know when…

[DannyTN]

• What time of day is an asteroid most likely to hit?
• What if collided a few asteroids in such a way so as to make an object that would effectively clean up the asteroid belt the way a planet cleans up the debris in it's orbit?
• What if the asteroid belt is protecting us from something worse?

[SunkenCiv]

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[null and void]

Pam's Purple Spirograph

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[beethovenfan]

I wish one would hit D.C. Maybe we’d get our country back.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

This issue will stop “global warming” dead if folks have enough imagination to push the danger from asteroid impact into the front lines of the current InfoWars.