Asteroids

Toroid

Founding Member
Two asteroids will have a close approach to earth today.
NASA issues asteroid warning: Two mammoth space bodies to zip past earth tomorrow, will it hit us?
NASA, the United States space agency has warned that two asteroids, as long as 120 meters in diameter will have its close approach with earth on Sunday, November 25.

The first asteroid that will come close to the earth is being named '2009 WB105', and it is expected to show up at around 12.14 PM GMT (5.45 PM IST). As per experts at NASA, this asteroid could be measuring somewhere around 53 meters to 120 meters in diameter. Even in its smallest speculated size, this asteroid could be as large as an Olympic swimming pool, and if it is of 120 meters in diameter, it could be much bigger than football grounds.

Even though the space bodies traveling at a speed of 40,000 miles per hour will not strike the earth, NASA is planning to keenly observe its trajectory as it is a Near Earth Object (NEO). NASA defines NEO as any space bodies on an orbital path around the Sun of 1.3 astronomical unit (AU). It should be noted that one AU equals about 92.95 million miles, which is actually the distance between the earth and the sun.

2009 WB150 is expected to come as close as 3.7 million miles away from the earth, and it is undoubtedly a very short distance in astronomical terms. Just five hours after the close flyby of WB150, another relatively smaller asteroid will also make its close approach.

A few days back, on November 20, 2018, two other asteroids measuring 12 meters to 35 meters in diameter made its close approach. Interestingly, space agencies like NASA are detecting more and more near-earth objects every day, which has made many believe that our planet will collide with a rogue space body one day or the other.

Dr Iain McDonald, a top scientist at Cardiff University believes that earth's collision with a rogue space body is just a matter of time. While talking on the BBC's Today programme, McDonald claimed that devastating events like asteroid hits had happened in the past, and such dreaded events will be repeated in the future too.

In the meantime, a section of conspiracy theorists has started claiming that an increase in the number of asteroid approaches could be the indication of an impending apocalypse. These conspiracy theorists believe that rogue planet Nibiru is now in a collision course, and the asteroids which are making close approaches are indicating the arrival of the killer planet.
 

Toroid

Founding Member
NASA said the 280 ft. asteroid 2013 MD8 will skim by the earth at 30,422 mph.
Giant 280ft asteroid will skim past Earth TODAY in close flyby travelling at 30,420 miles per hour | Daily Mail Online
A massive asteroid believed to measure 280ftin diameter is set to fly past Earth this afternoon at a dizzying speed of 30,422 miles per hour.

The asteroid, dubbed 2013 MD8, is expected to skim past Earth at just over 3 million miles away, or about 13 times the distance between Earth and the moon, at 12:55pm (ET) on Tuesday.

The huge space rock is expected to make a 'close approach' to Earth, but its trajectory should see it soar safely by.
 

Toroid

Founding Member
A car-size asteroid exploded in the atmosphere 170 miles south of Puerto Rico. There's a quick clip in the link showing a flash of light.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weat...-moment/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9c2b25c2989f
The GOES-16 weather satellite is designed to detect flashes of lightning. On Saturday, it saw an asteroid.

At 4:25 p.m. Saturday, meteorologists noticed an unusually bright flash signature over Caribbean waters 170 miles south of Puerto Rico. Its light was visible in an area as large as Rhode Island — far too big to be a lightning strike. Plus there were no clouds in the area. It had to be something else. The answer turned out to be something out of this world.

A spattering of debris showed up on the radar of the National Weather Service’s office in San Juan, Puerto Rico. That’s a telltale sign of a meteor or asteroid impact.

Just how large was it? About 13 to 16 feet (4 or 5 meters) in diameter or the size of car.

As the asteroid entered the atmosphere, SpaceWeather.com reports that the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization’s infrasound station in Bermuda detected “airwaves” associated with the blast. Its recording station is located more than 1,000 miles away from where the asteroid hit, and yet the station “heard” it. But ordinary sound can’t travel that far; if it could, then everyone in Miami, Cuba and Puerto Rico would have heard the blast. It was a different type of sound: infrasound.
 

Toroid

Founding Member
South Korea fired 360 warning rounds at a Russian plane and the diameter of asteroid 2015 HM10 that will flyby the earth today is 360 feet. I wonder if that's code.
Closer than the Moon: 3 giant asteroids will whizz by Earth on Wednesday
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cb2762914aed
Three massive asteroids are expected to pass by Earth today, with one of the approaching space rocks flying closer to our planet than the Moon, NASA has warned.


Estimated at 360 feet wide, asteroid 2015 HM10 is expected to fly past our planet on Wednesday, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).

The next asteroid, 2019 OD, will be only 222,160 miles from Earth on July 24 – meaning that it will be closer to us than the Moon. A final one, 2019 OE, will trail 2019 OD but is much smaller in size and will be traveling at a much more modest speed. While 2019 OD’s relatively close approach to Earth is something of an anomaly, there’s no cause for alarm.

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=rtglQIR5Bso
 

nivek

As Above So Below
‘It snuck up on us’: A ‘city-killer’ asteroid just missed Earth and scientists almost didn’t detect it in time

U3XHF4GQUJGW3JCIPMYMMWL3EE.jpg


Alan Duffy was confused. On Thursday, the astronomer’s phone was suddenly flooded with calls from reporters wanting to know about a large asteroid that had just whizzed past Earth, and he couldn’t figure out “why everyone was so alarmed.”

“I thought everyone was getting worried about something we knew was coming,” Duffy, who is lead scientist at the Royal Institution of Australia, told The Washington Post. Forecasts had already predicted that a couple asteroids would be passing relatively close to Earth this week.

Then, he looked up the details of the hunk of space rock named Asteroid 2019 OK.

“I was stunned,” he said. “This was a true shock.”

This asteroid wasn’t one that scientists had been tracking and it had seemingly appeared from “out of nowhere,” Michael Brown, a Melbourne-based observational astronomer, told The Post. According to data from NASA, the craggy rock was large, roughly 100 meters wide, and moving quickly along a path that brought it within about 73,000 kilometers of Earth. That’s one-fifth of the distance to the moon and what Duffy considers “uncomfortably close.”

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