Scientists Find Potentially Hazardous Asteroid Hiding In the Sun's Glare (gizmodo.com) 37
A team of researchers has detected a trio of near-Earth asteroids in the inner solar system, one of which is the largest found since 2014 that poses a potential risk to the planet. The asteroids remained undetected until now because they occupy a region of the sky hidden by the Sun's glare. Gizmodo reports: Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are two types of near-Earth objects that space agencies like to keep track of. Despite the scary-sounding names, none of them pose any imminent threat to us. Currently, there are 1,454 NEAs that have a non-zero probability of impacting Earth in the next 100 years. You can find a complete list of NEOs at NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies.
The three near-Earth asteroids were found using the Dark Energy Camera in Chile. The camera took deep-field images close to Earth's horizon during twilight, to combat the Sun's glare and atmospheric distortions. The team's results are published in The Astronomical Journal. Two of the recently observed asteroids have orbits that safely skirt Earth, but one of the rocks -- a 0.93-mile-wide (1.5-kilometer) asteroid dubbed 2022 AP7 -- has an orbit that may eventually put it on a collision course with Earth. To be perfectly clear: The asteroid is not currently barreling toward Earth, but its path could bring it close enough one day that NASA will want to keep tabs on it.
The three near-Earth asteroids were found using the Dark Energy Camera in Chile. The camera took deep-field images close to Earth's horizon during twilight, to combat the Sun's glare and atmospheric distortions. The team's results are published in The Astronomical Journal. Two of the recently observed asteroids have orbits that safely skirt Earth, but one of the rocks -- a 0.93-mile-wide (1.5-kilometer) asteroid dubbed 2022 AP7 -- has an orbit that may eventually put it on a collision course with Earth. To be perfectly clear: The asteroid is not currently barreling toward Earth, but its path could bring it close enough one day that NASA will want to keep tabs on it.
Oh look, another excuse to keep nuclear weapons... (Score:2)
I THINK I'm joking...
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Nuclear weapons won't do much for our efforts. That's why we had the DART mission. There are much better ways to deflect an asteroid than with a puny explosion.
* Unless you're an idiot like skam240 who thinks China is a bigger danger than Russia.
Re:Oh look, another excuse to keep nuclear weapons (Score:5, Insightful)
China is potentially a larger threat than Russia, however Russia has a history of being more agressive towards the US while China is mostly conserved with economic dominance. However China having the highest population in the world, as well the third/forth largest land mass with access to a lot of resources. It in theory could mobalize into a bigger threat that can overpower the US.
Russia is our biggest active threat, but we need to take China very seriously.
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However China having the highest population in the world
It has an aging population that a lot of analysts are saying is going to collapse because they abolished the one child policy too late.
It in theory could mobalize into a bigger threat that can overpower the US.
No, because any theory that doesn't take into account the damage to China's global position, especially economically, is a bad theory.
China will try to continue to make a shitload of money from the US. It cannot do that if it attacks the US or any of its allies, plain and simple.
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China has no recent history of behaving like insecure macho men; they have acted surprisingly mature and educated with their heavy use and increasing mastery of "soft power" which is actually more powerful long term. They have no need to resort to war but they wisely maintain enough because that fallback is a necessary deterrent.
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China has no recent history of behaving like insecure macho men; they have acted surprisingly mature and educated with their heavy use and increasing mastery of "soft power" which is actually more powerful long term. They have no need to resort to war but they wisely maintain enough because that fallback is a necessary deterrent.
You should ask some of the countries in South East Asia, around South China Sea.
Maybe ask Korea, Japan and Taiwan(unless you consider Taiwan as part of China and so its an "internal matter") as well.
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Given the state of Russia's military, and the corruption and graft that got it to where it is, I'm very curious as to how many of their strategic missiles are in any shape to actually leave their silos.
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Russia was a big threat, now they're a lot less of one. There's no scenario under which launching nukes would make things better for Russia, so while it's not impossible there's no good reason for it to happen either. Russia's many many wars of aggression have been for profit, not for fun.
China remains a big threat, they took down Russia with tires! :D
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Russia was a big threat, now they're a lot less of one. There's no scenario under which launching nukes would make things better for Russia,
But right now there's a lunatic at the helm.
Who knows what Putin is capable of if he discovers he has cancer or something...?
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But right now there's a lunatic at the helm.
Who knows what Putin is capable of if he discovers he has cancer or something...?
On one hand that's a fair point, on the other hand you have to question whether Putin could successfully order a launch or not. He's gotten this far because there are people around him who want to appease him and don't want to die, but starting a nuclear war means very bad things for Russia. The same people going along with Putin so they don't die won't want to die in nuclear fire either. And there's really no question whether Russia or everyone else put together has more nukes, and nobody else has the appe
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Putin's literally threatened Ukraine with a dirty bomb.
No, he did not. He literally told a lie about Ukraine and dirty bombs that reasonably makes people suspect he's planning a false flag operation, but that is not literally the same thing. Maybe you should learn English before using the word "literally" again.
Here, mod this down too (Score:2)
I can afford the karma, and I'm willing to spend it defending facts and logic. How many modpoints you got, bitches?
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c. colloquial. Used to indicate that some (frequently conventional) metaphorical or hyperbolical expression is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense: ‘virtually, as good as’; (also) ‘completely, utterly, absolutely’.Now one of the most common uses, although often considered irregular in standard English since it reverses the original sense of literally (‘not figuratively or metaphorically’). 1769 F. Brooke Hist. Emily Montague IV. ccxvii. 83 He is a fortunate man to be introduced to such a party of fine women at his arrival; it is literally to feed among the lilies. 1801 Spirit of Farmers' Museum 262 He is, literally, made up of marechal powder, cravat, and bootees. 1825 J. Denniston Legends Galloway 99 Lady Kirkclaugh, who, literally worn to a shadow, died of a broken heart. 1863 F. A. Kemble Jrnl. Resid. Georgian Plantation 105 For the last four years..I literally coined money. 1876 ‘M. Twain’ Adventures Tom Sawyer ii. 20 And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth. 1906 Westm. Gaz. 15 Nov. 2/1 Mr. Chamberlain literally bubbled over with gratitude. 1975 Chem. Week (Nexis) 26 Mar. 10 ‘They're literally throwing money at these programs,’ said a Ford Administration official. 2008 Herald-Times (Bloomington, Indiana) 22 Oct. a8/1 ‘OMG, I literally died when I found out!’ No, you figuratively died. Otherwise, you would not be around to relay your pointless anecdote.
It LITERALLY can be sourced back to at least 1769.
Maybe YOU should learn how your own fucking language (and all language) works, dipshit.
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It is literal, if you aren't a fucking fauxtistic nerd. People don't say exactly what they mean. You have to do some translation. And given the high correlation in this tactic he uses, it BECOMES THE LITERAL meaning of what he says.
Maybe you should fucking kill yourself, instead of being an insufferable pedant grammar nazi nerd. There is no person more useless th
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For this class of asteroids they won't pop-up out of the Sun on a sudden collision course, but will slowly evolve into a collision orbit over centuries. Once such a developing threat is discovered some small modification of its orbit can be calculated and a mission developed to deflect it by a tiny amount.
Even if there was not a single nuclear explosive device on Earth, and no means to make any, the necessary production facilities to build the one device needed, to an optimum design could be built from scra
Re:BIG weapons (Score:2)
Asteroid deflection is an excuse to keep a few large warheads around. Nuclear weapons have shrunk and shrunk as technology of accuracy and penetration has allowed us to be able to use smaller warheads to more reliably hazard targets. The largest weapon we have in the active stockpile is are a few B83 gravity bombs only deliverable by B-2/B-21 and the B83 is planned to be decommissioned per the latest NPR. Every other active weapon we posses is 1MT physics packages around.
Keeping nuclear weapons in general i
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fallacy of asserting the consequent
if we have a nuclear war you'll be the no-brainer
"Hidden", not "hiding" (Score:2)
If the asteroid was capable of picking a spot to stay out of sight, we really need to worry, and start negotiating.
"How would you like a nice casino, or a soccer stadium?"
Re: "Hidden", not "hiding" (Score:2)
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Ya, the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, et. al. would never have thought of that.
So.... One day? What day? (Score:4, Funny)
Asking for a few billion friends.
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I'm not your friend, buddy!
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And you're not my buddy either!
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I mean, MY gut bacteria are my friends. Some good, some bad, but most of them fun, at least in some ways.
Always in suns glare? (Score:2)
I'm a bit confused about the "hiding in the Sun's glare" bit. If they are ever in a position to get out to Earth's 1 AU orbit, there must be times when they are well separated from the Sun, right? It sounds like these are within Earth's or Venus' orbit, but are observations in this area always this hard?
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You can't conduct a survey to catalog a population very effectively if you can only find them during the small part of their orbit, and with good relative geometry by happenstance. We actually have been finding them that way for decade, but it is not very effective. They are attempting to find all of the Earth-crossing asteroids of this close-in population, not just a few of them when conditions are ideal. And that requires observing close to the Sun.
A car analogy escapes me at the moment but I can offer a
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Re:Always in suns glare? (Score:4, Informative)
This particular [nasa.gov] asteroid has been observed 39 times over the last 4.86 years. It came within a light-minute of Mars a couple of times in the past century, but isn't predicted to get that close to any planet in the next century.
In general, ground based observations in the sunward direction are impossible. it's either daytime or the Earth is in the way. The noteworthy part of this story is that they did a twilight observation, so a little more than 90 deg from the Sun, and with the challenge of a partly illuminated sky. There have been proposals to construct a space-based telescope to do these observations to avoid some of these challenges. This would be particularly useful for the Aten group [nasa.gov] which spend most of their time within the Earth's orbit.
that's a relief (Score:2)
....at least then I have a chance that my 2024 "civilization-ending asteroid" US election prediction/hope is reasonably possible!
They left it too late (Score:2)
It all sounds like some bad movie (Score:2)
Time for Dark Star (Score:2)