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Asteroid set to buzz earth


Coss
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As if a pandemic, civil unrest, and economic mayhem weren't enough, the world now has one new hassle to deal with. According to CNN, NASA says there's an asteroid hurtling its way toward planet Earth.

The Center for Near Earth Objects Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the asteroid's diameter is about 6.5 feet.

NASA says there are three potential impacts, but the asteroid probably won't have a direct impact, let alone bring Armageddon.

The asteroid is set to buzz Earth on November 2nd, just a day before the US presidential election.

 

Given reference to Trump at the link, https://play.stuff.co.nz/details/_6183703979001 I'm not sure of the veracity of this story, but google provides links to other stories about this.

 

Any hoo, who interests me is that they 've ascertained that it's about 6.5 feet in diameter, or "0.002 km diameter" in another report.

That to me, seems about the size of a piece of space station, or a satellite and theretofore not a big threat.

Mind you, velocity and momentum could mean a different thing, i.e. if it's very heavy and travelling at huge , huge speed, it might make a hole in say, a city....

 

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Probably refers to this,

https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news205.html

A small object, presumed to be a tiny asteroid, has been discovered in a distant orbit about the Earth, a highly unusual circumstance, since asteroids normally orbit the Sun. The new “mini-moon” has been given the asteroid designation 2020 CD3, but in view of its strange orbit, there is a chance that the object is an old lunar spacecraft or a small discarded rocket stage. Based on its brightness, 2020 CD3 is very small, no more than 1 to 2 meters (3 to 6 feet) in size. The discovery was made on February 15, 2020 by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, one of the most productive asteroid-searching programs currently in operation. Trajectory analyses indicate that 2020 CD3 has been orbiting Earth for at least a year and probably more, presumably after being captured by the Earth’s gravity from an orbit about the Sun. During its time near our planet, the object has completed at least three large looping orbits with periods of between 70 and 90 days. At the farthest point in these orbits, the object is about four times as far away as the Moon. Its final close approach to the Earth occurred on February 13th at a distance of about 41,000 km (25,000 miles) from Earth’s surface, above the height of the geosynchronous ring of satellites at 36,000 km (22,000 miles). It is currently about 110,000 km (68,000 miles) from the Earth, and now moving away just fast enough that it will escape the Earth’s gravitational influence in early March and return to an orbit about the Sun.

 

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7728

 

Near Earth Asteroids, or NEAs, pass by our home planet all the time. But an SUV-size asteroid set the record this past weekend for coming closer to Earth than any other known NEA: It passed 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday, Aug. 16 at 12:08 a.m. EDT (Saturday, Aug. 15 at 9:08 p.m. PDT).

At roughly 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) across, asteroid 2020 QG is very small by asteroid standards: If it had actually been on an impact trajectory, it would likely have become a fireball as it broke up in Earth's atmosphere, which happens several times a year.

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