We dodged a bullet today. It came within one half of the distance to the moon.
I got this notice in email from NASA about a surprise asteroid that gave us only one day of warning passing halfway between the Earth and the moon. It was the largest known asteroid to ever pass that close to Earth in observational history.
SURPRISE ASTEROID FLYBY: With little warning, on Sunday, April 15th, a “Tunguska-class” asteroid about the size of a football field flew through the Earth-Moon system. 2018 GE3 was discovered just the day before as it plunged inward from the asteroid belt. A quick-thinking amateur astronomer in Europe was able to record a video of the asteroid as it flew by.
With little warning, a relatively large asteroid flew through the Earth-Moon system on April 15th only 192,200 km (0.5 Lunar Distance) from our planet. 2018 GE3 was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey approaching Earth on April 14th. Hours later, amateur astronomer Michael Jäger of Weißenkirchen Austria video-recorded the space rock rushing through the southern constellation Serpens:
“According to Wikipedia, 2018 GE3 is the largest known asteroid to pass that close to Earth in observational history,” says Jäger. “It was shining like a 13th magnitude star at the time of my observations.”
Based on the intensity of its reflected sunlight, 2018 GE3 must be 48 to 110 meters wide, according to NASA-JPL.
This puts it into the same class as the 60-meter Tunguska impactor that leveled a forest in Siberia in 1908. A more recent point of comparison is the Chelyabinsk meteor–a ~20-meter asteroid that exploded in the atmosphere over Russia on Feb. 15, 2013, shattering windows and toppling onlookers as a fireball brighter than the sun blossomed in the blue morning Ural sky. 2018 GE3 could be 5 to 6 times wider than that object.
If 2018 GE3 had hit Earth, it would have caused regional, not global, damage, and might have disintegrated in the atmosphere before reaching the ground. Nevertheless, it is a significant asteroid, illustrating how even large space rocks can still take us by surprise. 2018 GE3 was found less than a day before before its closest approach.
Based on an observational arc of only 1 day, 2018 GE3 appears to follow an elliptical orbit which stretches from the asteroid belt to deep inside the inner solar system. Every ~2.5 years the space rock crosses the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars–although not necessarily making close approaches to the planets themselves.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory has made an interactive orbit viewer available online here
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A known unknown. Then there are the unknown knowns that lie beyond the edge of our solar system, which reduce fidelity of transmitted signals in the near-frame (i.e. scientific domain).
There will be many more surprise asteroids. One day, there will be one that will end life on Earth as we know it. This will happen within the next 500,000 years. Or it could happen tomorrow. There is evidence to show every ~60 million years we get smashed. I believe the best answer is when the solar system crosses the galactic plane every other 30 million year period, many asteroids are dislodged from the Oort cloud by the increased galactic gravity. The ~60 degree tilt of the solar system to the galactic plane sends them on a 1-3 million year journey towards the Sun. Unfortunately for us, the Earth gets in the way. When they do come, they will appear with only a one to three day warning from the direction of the Sun as they swing around it. About 60 million years ago, they helped us escape the dominance of the dinosaurs. The next time they will just kill most of us in preparation for the next dominant species to claim the planet. The Solar System crossed the plane about 2-3 million years ago. It’s time for them to increase in size and quantity. The surprise sightings, especially the ones from the direction of the Sun, are the first indications of the asteroid swarm to come.
Next dominant species,,,
The way this society is going I’m putting my money on sex dolls
This guys seems to agree.
Really, they missed it?
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2018%20GE3&orb=1
“Oh Magoo! You’ve done it again!” Silly NASA should have realized all along that in the modern Space Age, defense of planet Earth should have been Space Job One. A voice in the wilderness calls out.
Has anyone seen Musk’s space Tesla lately? Maybe NASA was paid to find that and missed the rock.
CAGW is causing an increase in close encounters with deadly astroids by some unknown attractive power. A computer model will be created forthwith. But either way we are doomed!
So, were the Russians behind this one too?
Russia is behind some nasty attacks, but that would be the cons piracy of the day.
It would have been very bad timing if it hit the earth in the wrong place with the force of a hydrogen bomb today.
“The small asteroid that broke up over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2013, was a … The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT.”
And
“The Tunguska impact of 30 June 1908, which destroyed 2000 square kilometres of conifer forest in a sparsely populated region, the Central Siberian Plateau, had the energy of a large hydrogen bomb”
Wiki:
“Early estimates of the energy of the air burst range from 10–15 megatons of TNT (42–63 petajoules) to 30 megatons of TNT (130 PJ),[7] depending on the exact height of burst estimated when the scaling-laws from the effects of nuclear weapons are employed.[7][8] However, modern supercomputer calculations that include the effect of the object’s momentum find that more of the energy was focused downward than would be the case from a nuclear explosion and estimate that the airburst had an energy range from 3 to 5 megatons of TNT (13 to 21 PJ). ”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
Above article:
“Based on the intensity of its reflected sunlight, 2018 GE3 must be 48 to 110 meters wide, according to NASA-JPL.
This puts it into the same class as the 60-meter Tunguska impactor that leveled a forest in Siberia in 1908. ”
If it was 48 meters it would like Tunguska, and if 110 meters probably close to the Tsar bomb or
larger.
I once bought a fish finder for my boat and had been happily using it. then one day I had some kids on the boat and noticed we were in the midst of some of the best fish I had ever witnessed on the sounder.
We fished vigorously for some time before noticing that a tech savvy child had set it of in demo mode which has a very optimistic disposition.
That is NASA in demo mode looking for big rocks in space. Was there even a rock or was it a model generated rock. Would we even know, we live in a virtual climate generated by models is this the same, it reminds me of the game “second life” or some such name where you can be whatever you wish.
It was at that moment I hooked something big, though there was no fight in it. Soon I had hauled into the boat a silt-encrusted, somewhat corroded version of the same model fish finder with a cracked screen. “Maybe this one was set to demo mode as well,” I mused aloud, then glanced to see my own’s screen had turned a solid bright red. There were insistent taps on the hull, and we looked over the side to see many glowing rectangles rising in the murk. Some were larger than others. “Toss it back!” My mate cried. “Hell, toss ’em both!” But it was too late. The rectangles were now dark silhouettes against scattering sideways as a much larger greenish glow rose from the depths. It was enormous enough to span our boat, and as it neared the surface we could see the familiar icons to one side, and in the same area that had displayed the shoal of phantom fish that brought us to this fateful spot, there was, “Oh my God…
…” a cartoon shape of a boat on this evil screen. A giant steel hook exploded out of the water and hooked the side of the hull, and the boat tilted suddenly…
Tune in tomorrow for Episode #2 of Pesce Illuminati!
Some further discussion on Twitter between these three accounts including very good simulated views of GE3 passing us and other more detailed stuff
@tony873004
@Tom_Ruen (contributed graphics to the Wiki article)
@scute1133 (me)
Almost doomed.
By the skin of our teeth.
Rocket scientist – I want to address the very accurate appraisal of how difficult it is to pick up thes objects that you gave and the threat that one day we are likely to get hit. While I agree with everything you said, I do not think we need remain quite as helpless as we are.
It would not be beyond our abilities to launch automated satellites into orbits at various positions around the Earth’s annual orbit equipped with camera scopes to help pick up these smaller but potentially very dangerous objects by broadening our view of the space rock environment. In the long term we might even think of putting into orbit satellite rockets designed to knock smaller objects off a collision course with Earth rather than putting into orbit rockets designed to fall on us.
Of course this would be very expensive and certainly wouldn’t protect us from everything, but it would improve our chances. Perhaps it would be a better use of the trillions being utterly wasted on a colossal climate lie. It would also bring together the huge talents of people worldwide. But then I remain an optimist about people and nations , unlike the souless hatred of humanity all too evident in the green-eco movement which is determined to bring more misery to billions.
Since this substantial chunk swings by inner-system planets to solar perihelion from the Mars – Jupiter asteroid belt approximately every 2.5 years, how is it that NASA et al. have not previously marked its orbit?
Even by today’s rudimentary standards, you’d think that blanket surveillance of such objects would not be all that difficult. If Earth’s Oort Cloud of commercial/military/scientific satellites did not register this interloper, it can only be because no-one is looking.
The 1972 fireball is still the best kf the Earth-skimmers….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o1WKd8tWlto
Objects have been flying past the earth since Creation. We are just recently able to detect/see them. A big’un could hit us today, or it may be another 10,000 years.
Get over it.
We have to have several Orion class spaceships ready on low Earth orbit. Only those could produce acceleration enough to intercept surprise celestial bodies, especially ones coming directly from deep space. However, this one is not of that kind, so setting up a serious catalog of near Earth objects is a priority anyway.
That’s one of NASA’s jobs. While climate research in general is not, only launching &. operating satellites to collect &. share climate data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)
“We have to have several Orion class spaceships ready on low Earth orbit. Only those could produce acceleration enough to intercept surprise celestial bodies,”
Lasers don’t need to intercept the orbit of incoming asteriods. They can reach out and touch asteriods and comets in all sorts of positions. Immediately upon discovery, if necessary, no wait times required.
What? Did someone take down our posted Asteroid Free Zone sign?
Perfect!
If it’s not CO2 and has no carbon taxation potential, then it must not be dangerous.
There was a similar quote about this from a grazing dinosaur in a previous era of controversy between meat eaters and plant eaters.
Tracking near-Earth asteroids is too important to be left to NASA-JPL alone. Amy Mainzer isn’t Wonder Woman. She needs help of amateur astronomers to save the world
Volunteers anyone to help the lady?
You may now return to your carbon tax drumbeat and green tax credit mining.
Perspective: Lets say the rock was 100 meters wide to make the math easy. It passed by the Earth 192,200 kilometers away. The diameter of the Earth is 12,756 kilometers. If we move the decimal point 4 spaces to the left on all the numbers, that gives us a bullet size object missing a 1.2 kilometer size object by 19.2 kilometers.
Most people have no fear of a gun being fired 12 miles away. I am not sure why we call this a close call!
If you read the comments above, you will see that the distance by which it missed is equivalent to 5 minutes orbital travel time of the earth. If it had arrived 5 minutes sooner (or later, I am not sure which it is) it would have hit.
That is five minutes in the one year orbit time of the earth. That seems pretty close to me.
“A clear and present danger….” that many will try to minimize regardless.
‘Whistling past the graveyard’ ….. indeed!
“If it had arrived 5 minutes sooner (or later, I am not sure which it is) it would have hit.”
“If” is doing a lot of work there.
This is all Trumps fault!!!!!
Need a catchy phrase to get the attention of the current crop of administrators at NASA. I nominate “Asteroid Lives Matter.: That should meet all the requisite check-offs on their social science agenda.
Or the asteroid was Muslim. Or transgender. Or otherwise oppressed by its fellow rocks.
Or Muslim, and Transgender, and oppressed, and very possibly claustrophobic, too.
Auto
This has Trump/Putin written all over it.
NASA has been faking space travel, satellites, ISS,fear mongering the world with near miss asteroid claims, fake Hubble photos, fake photos of Earth from space. How can anybody take these scam artists and frauds seriously?
Near miss? Don’t you mean “near collision?”