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How Many Tiny Chelyabinsk-Class Asteroids Buzz Earth?
astroengine writes "The meteor that exploded over the Urals region of Russia in February was a violent reminder that our planet exists in a cosmic shooting gallery. Now, astronomers are focusing on these mysterious small and possibly dangerous objects in the hope of understanding what they are made of and what kind of threat they pose in the future. However, a recent paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal has identified a possible 'Achilles Heel' of visible light surveys. Using data from NEOWISE (the near-Earth object-hunting component of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission), there appears to be a bias in visible light asteroid surveys against finding small (100 meters) dark space rocks. 'With our previous NEOWISE studies, we found that about a third of NEOs larger than 100 meters are dark. It's possible that a population of smaller dark asteroids exists, but we don't have the right sample to test that theory with what we've done so far (in this research),' NASA JPL scientist and NEOWISE principal investigator Amy Mainzer told Discovery News. 'In my opinion it is probable that a similar fraction of small NEOs are dark, but the visible surveys are biased against finding them. They do find some but not many.' On considering the impact of the small Chelyabinsk object earlier this year, it is perhaps sobering to realize that while around 90 percent of NEOs with diameters larger than 1 kilometer are thought to have been discovered, less than one percent of asteroids the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor (17-20 meters in diameter) have been detected."
Chelyabinsk-class? So would that be the size of a large elephant, an olympic-sized pool, or a football field?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Reports just in of a Torino 1 level asteroid to possibly hit in 2032. Just your garden variety 400m wide space pebble.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Is it really practical to find and track these objects? There may be just too many of them. These small objects also probably have relatively unstable orbits, so would require constant observation not to lose them again.
Space Rock Insurance.
It should be a lucrative market. Sure, you have to pay out when you have sub-km size rocks wiping out clients, but on the bright side anything over 1km and you likely won't have to pay out at all!
100 calves - young calves from dancers. Oh Yes! Dancer and athlete legs - MMMMMM! Go ahead and drool over your Victoria Secret waifs with fake boobs. I'll take a toned athletic girl with great legs ANY day over Kate Upton or any other fashion model! Ooohhhhhh, sports models!
Wait, did you mean young cows?
The Chelyabinsk asteroid scared a lot of people and injured a few people, but it wasn't nearly as destructive as your average day of Russian traffic.
No
More music, fewer hits
is it seven? I'm going to guess seven.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And so few comments about an issue which is arguably the most significant environmental factor facing our species today.
What does that say about us as a race?
Well, there will be more comments I'm sure, when those rocks really start to rain down and ring up casualties in the millions. It's just a light bit of drizzle at the moment, but it has been steadily increasing.
Some of us have been aware of this coming for a couple of decades now, and it's all right on schedule.
One of the problems seems to be that the asteroid struck in day-time so was obscured by the Sun. The Sun seems to be an obstacle to proper tracking of these 'smaller' asteroids on Earth or using satellites orbiting earth.
I'm not suggesting this will be practical or affordable. Has there been any discussion of using a satellite to orbit the moon? Perhaps a potential use of deep-space probes like Voyager 1 will be to track these asteroids in the future (if V1 hasn't been doing this already).
What will also be "fun" is when we finally have a fairly well tracked large-ish object inbound towards the sun fragment as it approaches its perihelion. Think of a sort of "backwards Shoemaker-Levy" where all the bits separate, but instead of mostly going into the sun they fan out back into the rest of the solar system. Obviously momentum is conserved, but now the masses of all those objects are different than the original one. Good luck with predicting that in an orbital simulation.
If or when that happens while being observed, I think it'll be an "Oh shit!" moment. Of course nobody wants to talk about it, but I think it's something that's possible which people should be aware of. I wonder if any experts have discussed such a thing?
Right in the Urals.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
A PHA is a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.
The Chelyabinsk meteor had an 85 meter size, so it would most likely not be found by LSST. There are some other studies to use satellites in the IR band to look for smaller size objects.
Why is Snark Required?