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Video Showing Half a Million Asteroid Discoveries

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the final-frontier dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Since 1980 over a half million asteroids have been discovered, mostly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, now thanks to this video you can see this activity condensed into a few minutes. At full resolution it's a mesmerizing experience as new discoveries are added and the video makes it possible to see patterns in the discovery positions, for example a large number appear in line between Earth and Jupiter as astronomers started looking for smaller jovian moons after Voyagers visit to the system."

2 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Cheers, astronomers! by Aussenseiter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Celebrating 30 years of counting rocks in space. Here's looking at you, kid.

  2. Gives me a cool idea... by boneclinkz · · Score: 5, Funny

    For a potential video game. You pilot a small spaceship, and your job is to shoot asteroids with your laser cannon as they appear. When an asteroid is hit, it breaks into several smaller asteroids. You then have to shoot those asteroids until they break up into asteroids so small that they are no longer a danger. If an asteroid impacts your spaceship, you die.

    I think they should call it The Ship that Shoots a Laser Cannon.