A 6.5-foot asteroid will zoom past Earth just before Election Day but astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says it's nothing to worry about.
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"It's not big enough to cause harm. So if the World ends in 2020, it won't be the fault of the Universe," Tyson said.
In August, news of the 6.5-foot asteroid's approach spread due to its proximity to Election Day in the United States.
NASA, through an official social media account dedicated to asteroid observation, dispelled the notion.
While you're here, how about this:
Scientists study the rugged surface of near-Earth asteroid Bennu -- ScienceDaily
As the days count down to NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's Touch-And-Go asteroid sample collection attempt, Southwest Research Institute scientists have helped determine what the spacecraft can expect to return from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu's surface. Three papers published online by Science on Oct. 8 discuss the color, reflectivity, age, composition, origin and distribution of materials that make up the asteroid's rough surface.
On October 20, the spacecraft will descend to the asteroid's boulder-strewn surface, touch the ground with its robotic arm for a few seconds and collect a sample of rocks and dust -- marking the first time NASA has grabbed pieces of an asteroid for return to Earth. SwRI scientists played a role in the selection of the sample sites. The first attempt will be made at Nightingale, a rocky area 66 feet in diameter in Bennu's northern hemisphere.
The strange story of 2020 SO: How an asteroid turned into rocket junk and the NASA scientist who
As soon as he saw the data, Paul Chodas knew something was strange about the near-Earth object that had been designated 2020 SO.
It should have been just another of the tens of thousands of space rocks that astronomers have spotted breezing through our neighborhood in space. This solar system rubble is mostly harmless, but scientists identify and track all they can in case an object appears to be on a collision course with Earth. As head of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, Chodas evaluates observations of these objects every day.
Arming against the asteroids – Aerospace Manufacturing
In this Q&A session Professor Francesco Topputo from the Politecnico di Milano, discusses the Italian university's department of aerospace science and technology involvement, in developing a CubeSat for the European Space Agency's Hera space craft. The mission, to the binary asteroids of Didymos and Dimorphos, is part of the AIDA project with NASA to explore the possibility of deflecting dangerous asteroids away from a collision course with the Earth.
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Q) How did the selection process take place for the University to be part of this ESA Hera project? What is your department’s experience in developing these kinds of systems before?
This may worth something:
Risky business: Cellphone satellite networks endanger asteroid early warning, threaten
Astronomers are crying foul because the satellites —which have proven to be much more reflective than anticipated—are making it difficult for observatories to survey the night sky. The satellites show up as multiple streaky white lines in long-exposure photography so essential to detecting new objects in the distant reaches of the universe.
Thus have the wonders of wireless communications blinded us to the risks of filling the sky with so many satellites. Were that the extent of the problem, it would be irksome to the world astronomy community but probably not a major concern to the rest of us. Unfortunately, much bigger risks await us as the number of satellites in orbit around planet Earth reaches, well, astronomical proportions.
Tunguska Explosion Caused by Asteroid Grazing the Earth, Say Scientists | Discover Magazine
In the early morning of Jun. 30, 1908, a massive explosion flattened entire forests in a remote region of Eastern Siberia along the Tunguska River. Curiously, the explosion left no crater, creating a mystery that has puzzled scientists ever since — what could have caused such a huge blast without leaving any remnants of itself?
Now Daniil Khrennikov at the Siberian Federal University in Russia and colleagues have published a new model of the incident that may finally resolve the mystery. Khrennikov and co say the explosion was caused by an asteroid that grazed the Earth, entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle and then passing out again into space.
First asteroid found within Venus's orbit could be a clue to missing 'mantle' asteroids | Science
Earlier this year, astronomers discovered an oddball asteroid inside the orbit of Venus—the first member of a predicted flock near the Sun. No bigger than a small mountain, the asteroid has now gained another distinction: It appears to be rich in the mineral olivine, which makes up much of Earth's deep rock. Some astronomers think that is a clue to a larger set of asteroids, never properly accounted for, that was forged early in the formation of the Solar System.
"It's improbable that we look at this new population and an olivine-dominated object is the first type we see," says Francesca DeMeo, an asteroid hunter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not part of the discovery team. "That's what makes this a cool result."
Why NASA plans to slam the DART spacecraft into an asteroid
DART, NASA's first planetary defense mission, will demonstrate asteroid deflection by crashing the spacecraft, built by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), into an asteroid at roughly 14,500 miles per hour.
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An enormous asteroid—big enough to leave a six-mile-wide crater and darken the world with dust if it hit Earth—will harmlessly zip by our planet on April 29. The object, called 1998 OR2, is at least a mile wide , and while it poses no threat, it will pass within four million miles of our planet—close enough to be classified by NASA as "potentially hazardous," because it will continue to make close passes to Earth in the future as both objects orbit the sun.
Happening on Twitter
So who had asteroid on their 2020 bingo card? Neil deGrasse Tyson warns that one may just buzz Earth the day before… https://t.co/011BVlmb14 ComicBook Mon Oct 19 02:48:41 +0000 2020
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