"The Little Prince" goes digital. An interactive CD-ROM of the book with narration by Kenneth ... [+] Branagh was made in 2000. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
If you need cheering up today, just remember that the asteroid from The Little Prince is real. The real-world version is a 2 kilometer-wide asteroid called 46610 Bésixdouze , and it's a charming reminder that even grownup scientists aren't hopelessly reasonable all the time.
In the classic children's book, a pilot lost in the Sahara meets a strange little boy, who claims to be a space traveler from a tiny asteroid called B612. It's a fanciful little world about the size of a house, with two active volcanoes and a dormant one, a stubborn infestation of baobab trees, and a sentient rose.
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NASA Asteroid Alert: 4 Asteroids To Approach Earth This Saturday
NASA's asteroid tracking system has detected four space rocks that will fly past Earth this Saturday. According to the agency's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), three of the approaching asteroids follow orbits that intersect the planet's path.
CNEOS reported that the first asteroid that will approach Earth this weekend is known as 2020 DV1 . This asteroid is currently moving towards Earth at a speed of almost 35,000 miles per hour. It has an estimated diameter of about 282 feet, which makes it almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
Asteroid alert: NASA tracks a 110M rock barreling towards Earth - Close approach in hours |
Tomorrow, the space rock will visit Earth’s corner of space on a path known as a “close approach”.
Asteroid BM123 is a so-called near-Earth object (NEO) racing around the inner circles of the solar system.
NASA said: “Some asteroids and comets follow orbital paths that take them much closer to the Sun and therefore Earth – than usual.
“If a comet or asteroid's approach brings it to within 1.3 astronomical units of the Sun, we call it a near-Earth object.
No, The Asteroid Is Not Going To Hit Earth
So, you've just read that an asteroid is heading towards Earth today, tomorrow, maybe next week, or even next month. And you're wondering, is it really going to hit us, end civilization, or cause a decades-long nuclear winter?
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Because there are so many asteroids passing Earth, information on them can often be limited – NASA isn't going to issue a press release about every event. In the rest of February 2020 alone there are more than a dozen other smaller asteroids making close passes with Earth.
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Turbulent times revealed on Asteroid 4 Vesta
"Vesta is the only largely intact asteroid which shows complete differentiation with a metallic core, a silicate mantle and a thin basaltic crust, and it's also very small, with a diameter of only about 525 kilometers," Professor Jourdan said.
"In a sense it's like a baby planet, and therefore it is easier for scientists to understand it than say, a fully developed, large, rocky planet."
To give you an idea of its size, you could squeeze at least three Vesta-size asteroids side by side in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
Asteroid alert: 12H countdown as NASA tracks asteroid headed our way - Will it hit?
Asteroid DS30 belongs to a family of space rocks known to frequently intersect Earth’s orbit.
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According to the Planetary Society, an impact from one of these objects “could have devastating effects”.
The Planetary Society said: “It’s not enough to find an asteroid. You need to figure out its orbit in order to determine if it is going to hit Earth.
“To do that, you need to track it: get lots of follow up telescope observations that measure where it is in the sky at different times.
KUOW - Earth Snags A 'Mini-Moon' As Asteroid Is Ensnared In Orbit
The “near-Earth asteroid” or "temporary captured object" has been orbiting our planet since 2017. The natural asteroid is thought to be about 12 feet across, or roughly the size of a car.
Astronomers in Arizona first observed the small object earlier this month, giving it the provisional name 2020 CD3.
Eric Christensen, director of the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded near-Earth asteroid search team based at The University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, says astronomers believe the mini-moon has been orbiting Earth for a few years.
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket To Launch NASA Mission To 'Unique' Asteroid In 2022
NASA has announced that SpaceX will launch the agency's Psyche spacecraft in 2022, a mission to study an asteroid of the same name in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The launch will take place from Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral in Florida. There will also be two secondary payloads onboard – EscaPADE, which will study the atmosphere of Mars, and Janus, designed to study binary asteroids.
The spacecraft will take more than three years to reach its target, entering orbit in January 2026, where it will then study the 250-kilometer-wide object from afar to work out how it was formed and if it is similar to Earth's own core.
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