Posted on 04/27/2022 9:41:39 AM PDT by Red Badger
Illustration of an asteroid. (NASA/JPL/Caltech)
A gigantic "potentially hazardous" asteroid that may be twice the size of the Empire State Building is set to zoom past Earth Thursday (April 28), according to NASA.
The asteroid, named 418135 (2008 AG33), has an estimated diameter between 1,150 and 2,560 feet (350 to 780 meters) and will break into Earth's orbit at a blistering 23,300 mph (37,400 km/h). Thankfully, the asteroid is expected to skim past our planet without any risk of impact.
At its closest point, the asteroid – traveling at more than 30 times the speed of sound – will come within about 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) of Earth, which is roughly eight times the average distance between Earth and the Moon.
This may sound like a big gap, but by cosmic standards, it's actually a stone's throw away.
Related: We may finally know why spinning-top asteroid Ryugu has such a weird shape
NASA flags any space object that comes within 120 million miles (193 million km) of Earth as a "near-Earth object" and any fast-moving object within 4.65 million miles (7.5 million km) as "potentially hazardous".
Once the objects are flagged, astronomers closely monitor them, looking for any deviation from their predicted trajectory that could put them on a collision course with Earth.
The incoming space rock was first discovered on 12 January 2008, by asteroid surveyors at the Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter observatory in Arizona and last zipped past Earth on 1 March 2015, according to NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
The asteroid swings by our planet roughly every seven years, with the next close flyby predicted to come on 25 May 2029.
Thursday's asteroid might not even be the biggest space rock to hurtle past us in the coming weeks.
That title will likely go to 467460 (2006 JF42), which has an estimated diameter between 1,247 and 2,822 feet (380 to 860 m) and will be traveling at roughly 25,300 mph (40,700 km/h) when it passes us on 9 May 2022.
If astronomers ever do spy an asteroid flying straight at Earth, space agencies around the world are already working on ways to possibly deflect the object.
On 24 November 2021, NASA launched a spacecraft as a part of its Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, which plans to redirect a nonhazardous asteroid by ramming it off course, Live Science previously reported.
China is also in the early planning stages of an asteroid-redirect mission. By slamming 23 Long March 5 rockets into the asteroid Bennu, the country says it would be able to divert the space rock from a potentially catastrophic impact with Earth, Live Science previously reported.
Good book!!
For some reason that line made me laugh.
Why? Because of the split infinitive?
So, Hot Fudge Sundae won’t come on Thursday?😁
Yes it is.
Must be over twenty years ago that I read it.
With the types of people in charge, I think they’d want it to kill as many people possible.
Same here, I don’t even know where my copy is, anymore.
The Webb Telescope is 1 million miles away, IIRC.............
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That reminded me to look for stories about the Webb Telescope. Looks like it has almost completed its alignment process, and i thought this was an interesting story...
You are looking at it the wrong way. Eat the orbit is ruffly spherical at 1AU convert that to miles and use Pi to get its orbital path length is 583,762,467.96 crossing anything 2 million miles of earth along that path length is the equal to 18 feet of the path length was a mile diameter circle. Would you want someone standing a two miles away from you on the other side of that circle shooting at you with a rifle bullet moving at 30 times the speed of sound knowing only at the last second its going to miss you by less than 20 feet? In cosmic terms its a near miss.
Earth’s orbit is at 1AU grrr auto correct
...will come within about 2 million miles
fkn idiots...
If that is “gigantic”, what would they call a 6 mile wide asteroid?
One of the great science fiction stories of all time...
GINORMOUS!.......................
The Chinese are the only nation with large three stage fission fusion fission weapons left they have 5 and ten megaton weapons in stock. The USA destroyers all of ours the Russians might have a few 25MT ones left. To move a Manhattan sized rock you need multiple high yield thermonuclear blasts directly on its surface or very close to it so the X-ray flux vaporize material in a blow off event to generate the specific impulse to move that rock. Blowing it up would be a terrible idea all that does is turn one big chunk into millions of smaller chunks with the same mass on the same impact trajectory when those smaller chunks hit the atmosphere they will superheat to plasma temps punch a hole for the mass behind the first wave and spread outwards in a huge million plus degree plasma shockwave incinerating everything on that side of the planet out to thousands of miles from the entry event then on impact a good portion of that plasma and liquid matter will rebound back into space to rain down on ballistic paths all over the planet again heating the atmosphere and everything under that heat pulse to thousands of degrees igniting continent sized areas. Only a shove out of the way will work and currently only the Chinese have the warheads to do this and the rocket with the payload to C3 escape velocity to throw a 10000 kg plus thermonuclear warhead out of earth’s gravity well into an inpactors path. The USA gave up this ability one by destroying our large three stage warheads and two by canceling the Apollo program. The shuttle never had the C3 payloads nor the Titan II spacex with starship will have multiple ton C3 mass payload falcon heavy could do it just barely. But there is no way to put a nuke on falcon heavy. Sadly China could be the only ones to save the planet. Russia might just have enough payload with a proton rocket and a slimmed down three stage but they could never put up dozens of them. The chicoms crank out long march like a factory they are based on there large ICBM design which they are still mass producing.
MSM gotta scare everyone.
Let’s review ... at its closest it will be EIGHT TIME the distance from earth to the moon.
It will be NINETY TIMES the distance from earth to the closest satellite in orbit.
So like OVER A THOUSAND TIMES the distance from earth to the International Space Station.
My copy is long gone also.
A planet killer.
Even if one the size of the empire state building were to impact this planet at about 27,000 mph, it could cause horrific death and damage.
A planet killer is basically anything large enough to cause an ELE. That would be 6 km and up arriving with a few ‘close friends’ as happened 60 mya. Those things are never alone ...
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