Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NASA Counts 4,700 Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Asteroids

Posted by samzenpus on from the time-to-call-bruce dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA continues to get a better handle on the asteroids buzzing around in space saying today that there are roughly 4,700 potentially hazardous asteroids, or as NASA calls them PHAs. NASA says these PHAs are a subset of a larger group of near-Earth asteroids but have the closest orbits to Earth's – passing within five million miles (or about eight million kilometers) and are big enough to survive passing through Earth's atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale."

3 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. PHA by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Funny

    PHA - Pointy Haired Asteroid?

  2. All well and good by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 5, Insightful
    But we are still hopeless at spotting these things for instance today Asteroid 2012KA will pass within 224000 Kilometres of earth http://www.universetoday.com/95202/asteroid-2012-ka-to-buzz-earth-on-may-17/ the scary thing is it was only discovered yesterday!!!

    So what are we going to do when one the size of texas comes heading for DC I mean aside from putting marshmallows on extremely long sticks :)

    --

    Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

  3. Re:More of this please by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Aren't we way ahead on this with asteroid mining?

    I mean the first step of that company is rolling out a mass-producible telescope specifically for spotting near Earth asteroids - something with a dangerous orbit also happens to be a great candidate for resource extraction, and their long term plan (deflect the targets into stable orbits around the moon) - has the benefit of developing the exact tools and techniques we'd need to employ for any type of practical asteroid defense.

    I mean, I'd say this is very much on its way to being a solved problem. Go go private sector (and potential piles of platinum).