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Archive for the ‘asteroid/comet impacts’ category: Page 24

Nov 25, 2019

‘City-killer’: Asteroid the size of the Great Pyramid may hit Earth in 2022, says NASA

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks, military

An asteroid estimated to be around the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza may hit the Earth on May 6, 2022, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Despite the one in 3,800 odds — a measly 0.026% chance — of the asteroid smashing into the Earth, the worst-case scenario will surely be of a scene akin to the climax of an apocalypse movie, or even worse, as per NASA via The Daily Express on Nov. 16.

If the “city-killer” asteroid, labeled JF1, is to hit Earth, the impact would be equivalent to the detonation of 230 kilotons of TNT. That is 15 times stronger than the atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima in 1945, which destroyed the whole city with 15 kilotons of force.

Nov 14, 2019

Earth was on the other side of the galaxy when dinosaurs reigned

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

Apart from the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, there aren’t many connections between space and dinosaurs outside of the imagination. But that all changed when NASA research scientist Jessie Christiansen brought the two together in an animation on social media this month.

For the past decade, Christiansen has studied planet occurrence rates, or how often and what kinds of planets occur in the galaxy, while studying data from exoplanet hunters such as NASA’s Kepler, K2 and TESS missions.

During a stargazing party at the California Institute of Technology, Christiansen was explaining how young the stars were that they observed. The skywatchers were looking at the Pleiades, a bright young cluster of stars that are some of the youngest in our sky.

Oct 24, 2019

Fossil Trove Offers Clues to How Life Found a Way After Asteroid That Wiped Out Dinosaurs

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, evolution, existential risks

On the outskirts of Colorado Springs, researchers have uncovered thousands of fossils showing how life on Earth revived in the aftermath of an asteroid impact 66 million years or so ago that killed most dinosaurs and other life on land and sea.

Taken together, the fossil trove documents an era when evolution, in essence, hit the reset button. While countless species vanished forever, some plants and animals rebounded relatively quickly in the first million years after the devastation, including the mammals ancestral to humankind, the scientists said in research published Thursday in Science.

Oct 21, 2019

Asteroid horror: NASA spots space rock half size of Ben Nevis on dangerous Earth-orbit

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

NASA is keeping a watchful eye on the mid-November close approach of a behemoth space rock that is almost half the size of Ben Nevis and hurtling towards earth at 18,000 miles per hour.

Sep 24, 2019

NASA Wants a New Space Telescope to Protect Us All from Dangerous Asteroids

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

NASA is pursuing a new space telescope tailored to spotting potentially hazardous asteroids.

Sep 6, 2019

Asteroid collision with Earth ruled out

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

AN ASTEROID which came crashing into Earth and NASA had no idea it was coming reiterates the need to keep a closer eye on the sky in case a massive space rock comes hurtling towards our planet.

Aug 18, 2019

Asteroid warning: Space rock comparable to dinosaur killer is heading Earth’s way

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

A MASSIVE asteroid comparable to the massive space rock which brought the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth to an end is hurtling towards Earth, and scientists have confirmed it is “potentially hazardous”.

Jul 29, 2019

A huge asteroid flew very close to Earth last week. How did we miss it?

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

The asteroid managed to get within just 73,000 kilometers of our planet without anyone noticing. The miss lends a new sense of urgency to preparations for a potential collision one day.

The news: On Thursday July 25 an asteroid dubbed “Asteroid 2019 OK”, measuring 57 to 130 meters wide (187 to 427 feet), got uncomfortably close to Earth, according to NASA’s near-Earth objects database. It was less than one-fifth of the distance to the moon away, making it a very close call in space terms. If it had landed on a populated area it could have caused major damage, although this outcome is statistically quite unlikely.

Should we worry? It’s hard not to feel concerned that a “city-killer” sized asteroid wasn’t detected further ahead of time. It was announced just hours before it passed by Earth, after being detected just a few days beforehand by teams in the US and Brazil. Its relatively small size, unusual orbit, and fast speed all conspired to make it tough to spot, researchers told the Washington Post.

May 9, 2019

Bill Nye: Killer Asteroid Will Hit Earth ‘Like Control-Alt-Delete For Everything’

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

A killer asteroid will hit the Earth, and it is not a matter of “if” but “when,” based on the discussions during last week’s 2019 International Planetary Defense Conference.

Bill Nye opened up about the threat of asteroid impacts and possible extinction, explaining that people need to be more aware of this threat. “The Earth is going to get hit with another asteroid,” Nye said during the 2019 International Planetary Defense Conference. “The problem is, we don’t know when.”

Nye, who is known as the TV “Science Guy” and is currently the CEO of the Planetary Society, continued by saying that even if an asteroid doesn’t hit Earth within the next few decades, the threat is still there.

Continue reading “Bill Nye: Killer Asteroid Will Hit Earth ‘Like Control-Alt-Delete For Everything’” »

Apr 27, 2019

NASA Preps Mission to Most Interesting Asteroid in Our Solar System

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

In 2022, if all goes well, NASA will launch Psyche, a space probe intended to visit the asteroid of the same name (16 Psyche is its formal designation). It’s a particularly exciting mission given Psyche’s unique nature and highly unusual composition.

The asteroid belt is composed of three types of asteroid: C-type (carbonaceous, ~75 percent of all asteroids), S-type (silicate-rich, ~17 percent of asteroids) and M-type (metal-rich), which are roughly 10 percent of the total population. The numbers, in this case, don’t add up to 100 percent because we aren’t sure of the exact ratios. 16 Psyche is an M-type asteroid made of iron-nickel. What makes it unusual is that it’s believed to be the now-exposed core of a protoplanet. It’s also estimated to be worth $10,000 quadrillion dollars, if anybody has a towing hitch handy.

Continue reading “NASA Preps Mission to Most Interesting Asteroid in Our Solar System” »

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