The decision map weighs up factors like an asteroid's mass and momentum, and then predicts the most effective way of avoiding a collision if it looks like the object will hit Earth's gravitational keyhole – that window of space where a hit would be guaranteed.
At the end of the decision map are three choices: steering the asteroid away with a projectile ; sending a scout up to take more measurements; or sending two scouts up to take more measurements and maybe shift the path of the asteroid slightly (making the projectile option easier further down the line).
Other things to check out:
When the Sun expands, it will trash all the asteroids | Ars Technica
We tend to view the bodies of the Solar System as creations of gravity, which pulled their parts together and holds them in place as they orbit. But as we saw with ideas about the formation of Arrokoth , there are lots of situations where gravity is essentially a constant for long periods of time. And given enough of that time, relatively small forces like friction from sparse gas clouds or pressure from the light of the Sun can add up and create dramatic changes.
One of these has been named the YORP effect , for its developers, Yarkovsky, O'Keefe, Radzievskii, and Paddack. It describes how light can alter the rotational properties of orbiting bodies. In a recent edition of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dimitri Veras and Daniel Scheeres decided to calculate what happens as the Sun ages, the intensity of its light increases dramatically, and the entire asteroid belt gets YORPed.
Good news: Neural network says 11 asteroids thought to be harmless may hit Earth.
A neural network has identified eleven asteroids, so far thought to be benign, that may eventually come close enough to hit Earth.
These 11 space rocks, each measuring more than 100 metres across, are listed in a NASA database as, for now at least, non-hazardous objects.
However, AI software – developed by researchers at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and dubbed the Hazardous Object Identifier – has singled out the eleven, predicting they could come within 0.05 astronomical units (7.5 million kilometres, 4.7 million miles) of terra firma. By that definition, these asteroids should be labelled as potentially hazardous objects.
An Asteroid Totally Just Mooned Earth
As it approached Earth space, asteroid 2020 BX12 was under close observation. Clocking in at 200 to 450 metres across (656 to 1,476 feet), and moving at around 90,000 kilometres per hour (56,000 miles per hour), the space rock was one of the larger ones to enter our vicinity in recent weeks.
It passed safely by at a distance of over 4.3 million kilometres (2.7 million miles) on February 3, placing it at over 11 times the distance of the Moon, so you can chill about the prospect of total devastation.
In case you are keeping track:
Cratered asteroid is dubbed "golf ball asteroid" by researchers
In the golf course that is the universe, someone may have just hit into us . Or, of course, if we're actually the light blue ball in this colossal player's galactic round, then get off this site, man, and head for cover.
The mind can be allowed to have a little fun and think on a cosmic golf scale after researchers recently dubbed an asteroid in our solar system's asteroid belt the "golf ball asteroid."
Newly released images of the asteroid Pallas show 36 craters just larger than 18.5 miles wide and spread out over about 10 percent of the asteroid – giving the asteroid its dimpled golf-ball look.
YORP Effect - Sun Radiation - Asteroid Belt
Between five and six billion years from now, astronomers say the sun will expand into an even bigger fireball, swallowing almost half the solar system. This rapid expansion into its red giant stage is likely to send asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter tumbling.
Asteroids that absorb this momentum-packed sunlight eventually re-radiate it back out into space as heat, which creates small amounts of thrust, thus inching the rocky bodies from their original path or causing them to spin faster and faster. Because most asteroids are "rubble piles"—loosely packed blobs of dust, rock and ice—many won't be able to withstand the forces of this increased rotation and will shatter, flinging rocky debris far out into the solar system.
Asteroid news: Space rock impacts 'can HELP the environment' | Science | News | Express.co.uk
This corresponds to one of the “Big Five” mass extinctions, which occurred at the KPg boundary at the end of the Cretaceous, 66 million years ago.
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The findings offer evidence of which processes lead to enrichment of these types of elements—an understanding that may be applied to other geological boundary events as well.
University of Tsukuba researchers analysed the concentrations of certain elements within the KPg boundary clays—such as copper, silver, and lead—to determine which processes led to the element enrichment after the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact.
Asteroid Images - Pallas - Asteroid Looks Like Golf Ball
An international research team has discovered a pock-marked asteroid that it's dubbed the "golf ball" asteroid. Pallas, as it's officially called, is currently zipping along its orbit in the asteroid belt.
The team used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope—an array of four telescopes, each of which have a 26-foot-wide mirrors—nestled in Chile's Atacama desert to get updated images of the asteroid. Over the course of two observation periods in 2017 and 2019, astronomers collected 11 images, which they stitched together to form a 3D image of the celestial object and a map of its crater-speckled surface.
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