A massive asteroid got extremely close to Earth & scientists didn’t know until it was only days away
With all of the high tech at NASA’s disposal, you would think
that they would have noticed a 427-foot-wide asteroid barreling towards
Earth, but sometimes things slip past their watch. On Friday, the
massive asteroid, now named 2019 OK, got within 45,000 miles of Earth as
it passed.
While that might seem like an astronomical number, that’s only 20% of the distance between the Earth and the moon, so in universal terms, that qualifies as a pretty narrow miss.
A “City-Killer” Asteroid
2019 OK is classified as a “city killer” asteroid, which can hit Earth with the force of multiple nuclear bombs and could destroy entire cities. While NASA and other agencies have technology to track objects like this, there isn’t enough funding to observe every single one. NASA manages to track less than one third of the major asteroids.
While that might seem like an astronomical number, that’s only 20% of the distance between the Earth and the moon, so in universal terms, that qualifies as a pretty narrow miss.
A “City-Killer” Asteroid
2019 OK is classified as a “city killer” asteroid, which can hit Earth with the force of multiple nuclear bombs and could destroy entire cities. While NASA and other agencies have technology to track objects like this, there isn’t enough funding to observe every single one. NASA manages to track less than one third of the major asteroids.
How Did They Miss This?
Research
teams in Brazil and the US only noticed 2019 OK about a week before it
passed, long after the time needed to do anything to deflect or destroy
it if Earth was in its path.
Australian astronomer Alan Duffy encouraged
the world's governments to take threats like this serious and boost
astronomer's funding in order to avoid a catastrophic event.
We don't have to go the way of the dinosaurs. We actually have the technology to find and deflect certainly these smaller asteroids if we commit to it now.
Of Course Twitter Has Jokes
Because this is 2019 and the world seems to be on fire anyway, Twitter of course had jokes about the asteroid. Why grapple with the seemingly random void of space when you can meme it online instead?
No comments
Thanks for viewing, your comments are appreciated.
Disclaimer: Comments on this blog are NOT posted by Olomoinfo, Readers are SOLELY responsible for their comments.
Need to contact us for gossips, news reports, adverts or anything?
Email us on; olomoinfo@gmail.com