“Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are currently defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid’s potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth. Specifically, all asteroids with a minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) of 0.05 au or less are considered PHAs,” NASA said in a statement.
According to NASA, asteroid 2020 ND is about 170 metre-long will be as close as 0.034 astronomical units (5,086,328 kilometres) to our planet. The asteroid is travelling at a great speed of 48,000 kilometres per hour. The distance from the earth is what categories this asteroid as “potentially dangerous”.
2016 DY30 is headed in the direction of Earth at a speed of 54,000 kilometres per hour whereas 2020 ME3 is travelling at 16,000 kilometers per hour. The 2016 DY30 is the smaller asteroid of the two as it is 15 feet wide.
Visiting from the most distant parts of our solar system, it made its once-in-our-lifetimes close approach to the Sun on July 3, 2020 and will cross outside Earth’s orbit on its way back to the outer parts of the solar system by mid-August. Join experts on #NASAScience Live Wednesday, July 15 at 3:00 p.m. EDT to learn more about this comet and how you can spot it before it’s gone. Submit questions now using #askNASA and set a reminder to tune in!
A research team from ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen counted over 136,000 rockfalls on the moon caused by asteroid impacts. Even billions of years old landscapes are still changing.
In October 2015, a spectacular rockfall occurred in the Swiss Alps: in the late morning hours, a large, snow-covered block with a volume of more than 1500 cubic meters suddenly detached from the summit of Mel de la Niva. It fell apart on its way downslope, but a number of boulders continued their journey into the valley. One of the large boulders came to a halt at the foot of the summit next to a mountain hut, after traveling more than 1.4 kilometers and cutting through woods and meadows.
On the moon, time and again boulders and blocks of rock travel downslope, leaving behind impressive tracks, a phenomenon that has been observed since the first unmanned flights to the moon in the 1960s. During the Apollo missions, astronauts examined a few such tracks on site and returned displaced rock block samples to Earth. However, until a few years ago, it remained difficult to gain an overview of how widespread such rock movements are and where exactly they occur.
Imagine Yankee Stadium or Citi Field cruising by Earth in a giant foul-ball flyby. That’s what’s set to happen this weekend when an asteroid the size of the Empire State Building tumbles through space uncomfortably close – but not close enough to hurt.
But it may be taller than the Empire State Building, which is 1,454 feet tall. The asteroid is estimated to be between 820 feet and 1,870 feet in diameter.
The asteroid was first spotted nearly two decades ago and is called 2002 NN4.
Seek and Destroy: How NASA Protects Us from Thousands of Asteroids.
The reality of COVID19 raises a critical question in the mind of Adam Ethan Loeb a young Belgium boy regarding the extinction of the human person. This questions birthed “Adam’s Dream” which for him will help in “Saving Humanity From Extinction”, by “Availing a Multiplanetary Education for the present and Future Generations“ This 12year old boy highly influenced by Elon Musk and Peter H. Diamandis believes that a multiplanetary existence could have prevented the spread of coronavirus. This young Space Enthusiast believes that since they are the future of tomorrow, well structure Young Space Education System should be availed because the Future is Faster than we think.
In explaining his vision Adam explained, “Adam’s Dream is my vision about the future with regard to preserving our kind and other living things. This idea struck my mind during this novel coronavirus outbreak. As the spread increases day in and day out, I was scared and asked my mum the question, “mum, do you know that living in space could have saved or preserved humanity better”? My reason is, if we become multiplanetary, it will solve the problem of overpopulation and make the human person more creative and resilient.
Thus, in this project, I will be preparing my generation and the ones to come to become multiplanetary Species. We have many Space Advocates; there is no proper attention giving to the younger generation. The future is obscure for my generation, and I want to lead them to light through the help of those who know better in compliance with “Adam’s Dream” rooted in Saving Humanity from Extinction by Availing a Multiplanetary Education for the present and Future Generations. In this, we can have a Sustainable “Kosmic” Environment for Prosperous Living.
Reading the works of Elon Musk gave me the conviction that as a Multiplanetary Activist, I can do this. Elon started thinking about Space at 14 years; I began at 10years. He is no doubt my number one role model followed by Peter H. Diamandis with my effort in understanding the teachings of Sara Seager – Planetary Scientist, K. Radhakrishnan, Carolyn Porco, Jill Tarter, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Liu Yang, Steve Squyres, Louis Allamandola, and David Spergel. I will have a better approach to harnessing the reality of Multiplanetary for my generation on those to come. The reality of Space is faster than you think.”
A truck-sized asteroid has careened past Earth in one of the closest flybys ever recorded – but none of satellites scanning the skies to protect our planet saw the space rock coming.
The previously unseen asteroid, 2020 JJ, whizzed past at a distance of around 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) this week. In astronomical terms, that’s an incredibly close shave, and it makes it one of the closest passes of our planet ever recorded.
In a development that might worry those tasked with protecting Earth from being smashed by space objects, the asteroid was only discovered by the Mount Lemmon Survey in Arizona at almost exactly the time it reached its closest point to Earth.
International auction house Christie’s is set to offer one of the largest lunar meteorites in existence for private sale. It is the fifth largest piece of the moon, larger than any moon rock returned by the Apollo programme.
Christie’s presents NWA 12691, a significant lunar rock, among the largest known in existence. Moon rock is among the rarest substances on Earth, with less than 650 kgs of lunar meteorites known to exist. This example is the fifth largest piece of the Moon on Earth, larger than any returned by the Apollo programme. Valued in the region of £2 million, the specimen is available for immediate purchase via Christie’s Private Sales.
Lunar meteorites arrived on Earth after having been blasted off the lunar surface by the collision with an asteroid or comet. All of the Moon’s large craters were created by such impacts. This particular meteorite was part of a large meteorite shower straddling the Western Saharan, Algerian and Mauritanian borders, responsible for nearly half of all known lunar meteorites. Approximately 30 different meteorites were collected, analysed, classified and assigned different NWA numbers in the belief they might be from different events and represent different lunar samples; but it has been determined that they all originate from the same lunar impact event as the current offering. NWA 12691 was found in the Sahara Desert two years ago.
Have you heard about an asteroid close-approach happening on April 29? Asteroid 1998 OR2 poses no threat to our planet, but we can still learn a lot by studying it. Don’t miss a special Planetary Defense episode of NASA Science Live on Monday, April 27 at 3:00 p.m. EDT to learn how we find, track and monitor asteroids and near-Earth Objects.
