It goes around the sun in 180 days cycle and will come by to earth again and again until it hit! It will because every time passing earth the gravity altered it's orbit by gravitational attraction pull. Earth's gravity will pull it to an orbit closer to earth each time. The thing is 1.5km sized has it own moon! Power of impact due to high speed is bigger than nuke.
https://www.rt.com/news/460244-asteroid-close-earth-flyby-may/
Asteroid so large it has its own moon set to whizz by Earth this weekend (VIDEO)
Published time: 25 May, 2019 08:52
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File photo © Pixabay / Родион Журавлёв
Asteroid 1999 KW4 was first discovered two decades ago. It orbits the Sun once every 188 days, passing between the orbits of Venus and Earth as it goes, and is due to make its closest approach to Earth at 23:05 UTC on Saturday.
Classified as a Near Earth Object, the 1.5-kilometer wide asteroid is expected to zip by Earth without causing any harm, though the Minor Planet Center has labelled it ‘potentially hazardous.’ Its companion moon is about half a kilometer wide.
Also on rt.com From nuclear warheads to gravity tractors, how well are we prepared for an impending asteroid?
Although not visible to the naked eye, keen astronomers equipped with a telescope should be able to clap eyes on the speeding space rock over the next few days. At its closest point to Earth, the asteroid will be about 13 times the distance between our planet and the Moon.
This NASA video marks the asteroid’s path in yellow as it travels through our solar system.
EarthSky notes that this is the biggest asteroid to come so close to Earth for another decade; the next such close encounter is not expected until June 2027.
Also on rt.com NASA and emergency planners training to tackle impending asteroid strike
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https://www.rt.com/news/458196-asteroid-earth-tools-save-earth/
From nuclear warheads to gravity tractors, how well are we prepared for an impending asteroid?
Published time: 2 May, 2019 12:33 Edited time: 3 May, 2019 08:40
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Artist's conception shows an asteroid crashing into Earth in an event © STR New / Reuters
While hundreds of small asteroids and meteorites have hit Earth, big objects, like the 55 foot one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 only occur around twice a century, and larger (dinosaur-destroying) ones are even less common. However, NASA warns that “given the current incompleteness of the NEO [Near Earth Object] catalogue, an unpredicted impact could occur at any time.”
At the start of 2019, NASA reported there were 19,000 known near-Earth asteroids, with an average of 30 new ones found each week.
Detlef Koschny, co-manager of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA)-NEO Segment of the European Space Agency, told RT that it’s not the large NEOs that we need to worry about, though, but the smaller ones, as scientists are only aware of “one percent or less” of them and “they could still damage a city or region.”
Ideally, scientists hope to have several years’ warning of an approaching NEO of 100 meters or more, but when it comes to smaller ones, it is “more difficult to see them early on,” Koschny explains.
Offensive defense
“Anything larger than 50 meters we’d try to deflect,” Koschny said, pointing to NASA’s 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which aims to intercept an asteroid’s moonlet when it gets within 11 million kilometers of Earth. The hope is that it can “change the speed of an asteroid via a kinetic impact,” he explained.
Unfortunately, deflection methods require a few years of preparation, and the correct spacecraft would need to be built.
Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission © NASA
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a 2018 report outlining a 10 year plan to prevent asteroids from hitting Earth. It involves creating modeling tools and simulations to characterize risks, planning reconnaissance missions and developing technologies for fast-response missions to deflect or disrupt hazardous NEOs.
In Europe, NEOShield carries out research and development to reduce the risk of a NEO deflection mission failing, and has outlined several methods to prevent a NEO causing damage.
One proposal is a ‘gravity tractor’, which involves positioning a heavy satellite close to an asteroid which then “pulls the asteroid away.” It’s a good method, Koschny said, as scientists already know they can get satellites close to asteroids. However, this kind of mission “takes a long time, around 10 years.”
Meanwhile, using an “ion engine to push an asteroid away,” as has also been tabled “takes several years,” and there are “still some technical issues to understand,” he noted.
At the most extreme end of the intervention scale is a nuclear explosion, in which scientists would detonate a warhead right beside an asteroid so that the space rock’s surface is “super-heated and vaporized.” This vapor pressure then acts like rocket fuel to move the asteroid and is “the most effective method,” Koschny said.
However, it clearly has its disadvantages. “Politically, it’s not accepted, because of the risk of radioactive contamination” that could occur if the launcher failed or something went wrong.
Also on rt.com Key to the mystery of life? 3.5mn yo comet found inside meteorite could reveal solar system secrets
Standard explosives could also be used to shift the asteroid from its doom-bearing path, and another method involves embedding an explosive inside an asteroid (like the Hollywood movie Armageddon) and then blowing it up.
Asked how long it will be before we are fully prepared to prevent any asteroid from hitting Earth, Kosny said, “If we continue taking the subject seriously, we’ll be there in 10 to 20 years for objects up to a few hundred meters in size.” Let’s just hope no surprise asteroids come our way before then.
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https://www.rt.com/news/460244-asteroid-close-earth-flyby-may/
Asteroid so large it has its own moon set to whizz by Earth this weekend (VIDEO)
Published time: 25 May, 2019 08:52
Get short URL
File photo © Pixabay / Родион Журавлёв
- 705
- 15
Asteroid 1999 KW4 was first discovered two decades ago. It orbits the Sun once every 188 days, passing between the orbits of Venus and Earth as it goes, and is due to make its closest approach to Earth at 23:05 UTC on Saturday.
Classified as a Near Earth Object, the 1.5-kilometer wide asteroid is expected to zip by Earth without causing any harm, though the Minor Planet Center has labelled it ‘potentially hazardous.’ Its companion moon is about half a kilometer wide.
Also on rt.com From nuclear warheads to gravity tractors, how well are we prepared for an impending asteroid?
Although not visible to the naked eye, keen astronomers equipped with a telescope should be able to clap eyes on the speeding space rock over the next few days. At its closest point to Earth, the asteroid will be about 13 times the distance between our planet and the Moon.
This NASA video marks the asteroid’s path in yellow as it travels through our solar system.
EarthSky notes that this is the biggest asteroid to come so close to Earth for another decade; the next such close encounter is not expected until June 2027.
Also on rt.com NASA and emergency planners training to tackle impending asteroid strike
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
https://www.rt.com/news/458196-asteroid-earth-tools-save-earth/
From nuclear warheads to gravity tractors, how well are we prepared for an impending asteroid?
Published time: 2 May, 2019 12:33 Edited time: 3 May, 2019 08:40
Get short URL
Artist's conception shows an asteroid crashing into Earth in an event © STR New / Reuters
- 1
While hundreds of small asteroids and meteorites have hit Earth, big objects, like the 55 foot one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 only occur around twice a century, and larger (dinosaur-destroying) ones are even less common. However, NASA warns that “given the current incompleteness of the NEO [Near Earth Object] catalogue, an unpredicted impact could occur at any time.”
At the start of 2019, NASA reported there were 19,000 known near-Earth asteroids, with an average of 30 new ones found each week.
Detlef Koschny, co-manager of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA)-NEO Segment of the European Space Agency, told RT that it’s not the large NEOs that we need to worry about, though, but the smaller ones, as scientists are only aware of “one percent or less” of them and “they could still damage a city or region.”
Ideally, scientists hope to have several years’ warning of an approaching NEO of 100 meters or more, but when it comes to smaller ones, it is “more difficult to see them early on,” Koschny explains.
Offensive defense
“Anything larger than 50 meters we’d try to deflect,” Koschny said, pointing to NASA’s 2022 Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which aims to intercept an asteroid’s moonlet when it gets within 11 million kilometers of Earth. The hope is that it can “change the speed of an asteroid via a kinetic impact,” he explained.
Unfortunately, deflection methods require a few years of preparation, and the correct spacecraft would need to be built.
Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission © NASA
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a 2018 report outlining a 10 year plan to prevent asteroids from hitting Earth. It involves creating modeling tools and simulations to characterize risks, planning reconnaissance missions and developing technologies for fast-response missions to deflect or disrupt hazardous NEOs.
In Europe, NEOShield carries out research and development to reduce the risk of a NEO deflection mission failing, and has outlined several methods to prevent a NEO causing damage.
One proposal is a ‘gravity tractor’, which involves positioning a heavy satellite close to an asteroid which then “pulls the asteroid away.” It’s a good method, Koschny said, as scientists already know they can get satellites close to asteroids. However, this kind of mission “takes a long time, around 10 years.”
Meanwhile, using an “ion engine to push an asteroid away,” as has also been tabled “takes several years,” and there are “still some technical issues to understand,” he noted.
At the most extreme end of the intervention scale is a nuclear explosion, in which scientists would detonate a warhead right beside an asteroid so that the space rock’s surface is “super-heated and vaporized.” This vapor pressure then acts like rocket fuel to move the asteroid and is “the most effective method,” Koschny said.
However, it clearly has its disadvantages. “Politically, it’s not accepted, because of the risk of radioactive contamination” that could occur if the launcher failed or something went wrong.
Also on rt.com Key to the mystery of life? 3.5mn yo comet found inside meteorite could reveal solar system secrets
Standard explosives could also be used to shift the asteroid from its doom-bearing path, and another method involves embedding an explosive inside an asteroid (like the Hollywood movie Armageddon) and then blowing it up.
Asked how long it will be before we are fully prepared to prevent any asteroid from hitting Earth, Kosny said, “If we continue taking the subject seriously, we’ll be there in 10 to 20 years for objects up to a few hundred meters in size.” Let’s just hope no surprise asteroids come our way before then.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
