Asteroid Versus Earth NASA confirms new Asteroid heading towards Earth that could destroy it

NASA confirms new asteroid heading towards earth; Will it just pass by or destroy the 

planet?.

Read more at: 

https://www.ibtimes.sg/nasa-confirms-new-asteroid-heading-toward-earth-will-it-just-pass-by-destroy-planet-32357

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Asteroid about to make a close shave with earth … but how close? | euronews, world news

An asteroid thought to be up to 50 metres in diameter is expected to make a close shave with our planet on Saturday, although scientists are not sure just how close.

However, it is thought to be unlikely that “2013 TX68”, as it is known, will collide with the earth.
Euronews’ Jeremy Wilks spoke to a scientist at the European Space Agency, Michael Khan, an expert in asteroids and space debris.

Wilks: “To what extent does this asteroid pose a threat now?”
Khan: “The problem with this asteroid is that we don’t know much about it. We know approximately what its orbit is. We don’t even know how big it is, we know it’s somewhere between 20 and 50 metres in diameter. But we know the orbit to the extent that it allows us to say that it won’t hit the earth in March 2016 and we will have two encounters in this century and there it probably won’t hit the earth either.”

Wilks: “What would happen if an asteroid of that kind of size hit the earth?”
Khan: “This is kind of ‘iffy’. It’s likely – if it’s on the smaller end of this range of diameters – that it would just explode in the atmosphere, like the one in Chelyabinsk a few years back, over Chelyabinsk, that exploded and caused some damage but luckily no casualties. But it might conceivably hit the surface and make a hole and then you would be looking at really a real problem, damage and possibly also lots of people killed.”

Wilks: “In general, to what extent are asteroids a threat to us now?”
Khan: “Asteroids have always been a threat to the earth. If you look at the surface of the earth, it’s pockmarked with impacts. But luckily the larger the impacts are, the more damage they incurred, the less frequently they happen. So it’s not a very likely thing to happen but if a big impact happens it might have consequences that entail the end of civilisation as we know it. But that’s not a likely thing to happen. Everything depends on the size of the asteroid. So if you’re talking about something that has a kilometre in diameter then that would have global consequences.”

Read more: Asteroid about to make a close shave with earth … but how close? | euronews, world news

Apocalypse?: Mammoth Asteroid Will Waltz Past Earth on Christmas Eve - by Paula Mejia

Astronomers recently said Earthlings should prepare for a holiday gift in the sky—and, no, they weren’t referring to a Santa sighting.

On Christmas Eve, a gargantuan asteroid is on track to be visible from our planet via telescope.

But not to worry: There’s no danger of a Christmas Day apocalypse. The 3-kilometer-long asteroid (named 163899, or 2003 SD220) will be sailing by at a safe distance of 6.7 million miles.

The director of Northern Ireland’s Armagh Observatory, Mark Bailey, told AFP that while it’s not necessarily an “Earth-grazer,” it’s near enough that “you could expect several such encounters with objects of that sort of size every year—so maybe every couple of months you would get one coming that close, and of the same size.” He also noted that large-body collisions with Earth are rare, only occurring about once every 100,000 years.

If you miss this asteroid’s celestial dance this time around, you can catch it again in 2018, and again in December, according to a NASA report. Popular Science notes that the data researchers gather from the holiday asteroid is critical, as preliminary plans are in place to land aircraft on asteroids in the near future.

However, the next time an asteroid is expected to get somewhat uncomfortably close to Earth is 14 years from now, in April 2029, when the asteroid Aphophis is scheduled to pass about as close as the Moon and to be visible sans telescope.

Read more: Mammoth Asteroid Will Waltz Past Earth on Christmas Eve

Armageddon: Earth in near miss with enormous asteroid

An asteroid estimated to be the size of three football fields whizzed close to Earth on Monday, roughly a year after one exploded over Russia and injured 1,200 people.

Slooh Space Camera tracked the approach of the asteroid as it raced past the planet at about 43,000 km/h, starting at 9 p.m. EST, the robotic telescope service said in a statement on Slooh.com.

“We continue to discover these potentially hazardous asteroids - sometimes only days before they make their close approaches to Earth,” Cox said in a statement before the show.
He added, “We need to find them before they find us!”

Note EU-Digest: It is like a lottery if one of the asteroids will hit the earth - the only problem is that when this lottery "hits" it will mean Amageddon for the world.

 Earth in near miss with enormous asteroid - The Globe and Mail

Outer Space: Huge Asteroid 1998 QE2 Sails By Earth on Friday

Asteroid passing earth

A massive asteroid nearly 2 miles wide will zip by Earth on Friday (May 31), in a cosmic event that has grabbed the attention of stargazers, scientists and even White House officials. The asteroid poses no threat of hitting Earth during the flyby, NASA officials assure.

The huge asteroid 1998 QE2 is the size of nine cruise ships, about 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) across, NASA scientists say. While the asteroid makes its closest approach to Earth on Friday, traveling within 3.6 million miles (5.8 million km), you don't have to wait that long to see it. NASA chief Charles Bolden will host live telescope views of the asteroid today (May 30) at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1739 GMT) during a one-hour broadcast from the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

You can watch the asteroid webcast live on SPACE.com courtesy of NASA. Later tonight, NASA will host a webchat about the asteroid with the agency's meteor expert William Cooke at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. That discussion begins at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT) and can be accessed here: http://www.nasa.gov/chat

In its closest approach for at least the next two centuries, 1988 QE2 will whiz by at a harmless distance millions of miles from Earth.

The space rock was first discovered on Aug. 19, 1998, by MIT's Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) Program near Socorro, N.M. The moniker 1988 QE2 was assigned by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., which names each newfound asteroid according to an established alphanumeric scheme that lays out when it was discovered.

NASA keeps a close watch on asteroids that could pose a potential threat to the planet, and President Barack Obama's 2014 federal budget request sought to ramp up those efforts by including funds to kick-start a new mission to capture a small asteroid and park it near the moon.

Earthlings were reminded of the danger of space rocks this past Feb. 15. On that day, skywatchers were waiting for an asteroid about half the size of a football field (2012 DA14) to pass by the planet at a distance of just 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers). But hours before its closest approach, a different, 55-foot (17 m) object exploded without warning over Russia, damaging hundreds of buildings and injuring more than 1,000 people.

Read more: Huge Asteroid 1998 QE2 Sails By Earth on Friday - Yahoo! News

Huge asteroid to pass between Earth and Moon on Wednesday morning at CET 12.28 AM

A huge asteroid named 2005 YU55, bigger than an aircraft carrier will dart between the Earth and moon on Tuesday at 3:28 p.m. Pacific time, which is on Wednesday at 12.28 CET AM European time – the closest encounter of the Earth by such a huge space rock in 35 years.

Scientists who have been tracking the asteroid say it will pass within only 202,000 miles of Earth. That’s closer than the roughly 240,000 miles between the Earth and the moon. The moon will be less than 150,000 miles from the asteroid at the time of closest approach.

If 2005 YU55 were to plow into our home planet Earth, it would blast out a crater four miles across and 1,700 feet deep, according to scientific calculations. It would also cause a magnitude-7 earthquake, 70-foot-high tsunami waves, and major climatic changes.

Scientists, all over the world, who have been tracking the slowly spinning, spherical, dark-colored object since its discovery in 2005, and are positive it won’t do any damage.

For more: Huge asteroid to pass between Earth and Moon Wednesday morning at CET 12.28 am

Earth set for near miss from asteroid – but greater danger ahead

Earth is set for an astronomical near-miss from a passing asteroid this November – when a rock measuring almost a quarter of a mile in diameter will come closer to the Earth than the moon is.

The asteroid, officially named 2005 YU 55, will approach the earth at 0.85 lunar distances – around 200,000 miles – making it the closest object to have passed by Earth since 1976.

Although the rock has been designated a “potentially hazardous asteroid” by the Minor Planet Centre in Massachusetts, David Moore of Astronomy Ireland says the asteroid should be seen as a mere reminder of how Earth is in a “shooting gallery” for asteroids.

For more: Earth set for near miss from asteroid – but greater danger ahead · TheJournal

Baltimore Sun: Outer Space - Averting Armageddon via asteroid -- by Douglas MacKinnon

For the complete report from the baltimoresun.com click on this link

Averting Armageddon via asteroid -- by Douglas MacKinnon

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported that on March 2, asteroid 2009 DD45 came within about 48,000 miles of Earth. In astronomical terms, that's way too close for comfort. And yet during President Barack Obama's most recent press conference, no reporter asked him about this just-missed catastrophe. The fact is, the world hardly noticed. Asteroid 2009 DD45 was estimated to be between 69 and 154 feet in diameter. An asteroid that size exploded over Siberia in 1908 and flattened more than 800 square miles of forest, killing everything in its path. Moreover, 2009 DD45 is considered to be the runt of the litter when it comes to the asteroid family - quite small in relation to the planet-killers screaming through our solar system undetected. The vast majority of politicians are loath to discuss this subject out of fear of being lumped in with the "flying saucer" people or being considered eccentric by voters. I would argue that 2009 DD45 just proved that if they are not talking about most or all of life on Earth being ended by an asteroid, they are in dereliction of duty. But because of blind luck, the hand of God, or any explanation that helps you sleep better at night, we just avoided unimaginable destruction.

Make no mistake: We had no clue that 2009 DD45 was out there or that it was basically on a years-in-the-making possible collision course with our planet. None. While this close shave raises many questions, two immediate ones come to mind.First, as our elected officials throw billions of dollars around like they were dimes, do they think they need to invest a bit more money into asteroid detection and collision prevention? Such desperately needed money would be directed at NASA's Near Earth Object Program to first and foremost detect these potential planet-killers; later in the process, NASA would implement a plan that would entail flying (using robots or humans) to the asteroid to employ the most effective way to nudge it off its destructive course.

The second and maybe more pertinent question - for reasons including but not limited to an asteroid strike - is, does this latest cosmic scare dictate the need for the governments of the world to come together to formulate a plan to permanently get a representation of humankind off the planet and into the solar system as a way of preserving the species? Leaving aside destruction by an asteroid, human beings tend to be fairly fragile and don't react well to nuclear weapons, terrorism, natural disasters or unforeseen plagues. Isn't it time we covered our bets?