ANOTHER asteroid will make a “close approach” to Earth TODAY and it is being watched closely by space enthusiasts.
Asteroid 2007 FF1 is expected to make a close and safe encounter with our planet in just a few hours, according to space trackers, but despite the fact it will likely pass Earth without fanfare, it is still considered “potentially hazardous.”
Any object that comes within 4.65million miles of us is considered “potentially hazardous” by cautious space organizations, and the April Fool’s asteroid will pass within 4.6million miles of our planet.
Meanwhile, Asteroid 2013 BO76 hurtled past Earth on Thursday, March 24, at a staggering 30,000 miles per hour, according to Nasa trackers.
At up to 450 meters across, it’s roughly the same size as the Empire State Building and fortunately, the speedy object missed our planet by some distance.
It was estimated to fly by at a safe distance of around 3.1million miles, according to data on Nasa’s Near-Earth Object database.
Read our asteroid ‘close approach’ live blog for the latest news and updates…
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Types of asteroids: S-types
S-type (stony) asteroids are made up of nickel-iron silicate minerals.
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Types of asteroids: C-Type
C-Type (chondrite) are the most common asteroids. They are most likely made up of clay and silicate rocks and have a black look. They are among the solar system’s oldest ancient things.
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April Fool’s Day
Space experts have said that a “potentially hazardous” asteroid is set to approach the Earth on Friday, April 1.
Astronomers say the closest that the Apollo-class asteroid could get is about 4.6million miles away.
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St Patrick’s Day asteroids, continued
A 78 foot asteroid called 2022 EU3 was the last close approach asteroid to shoot past Earth on St Patrick’s Day.
Asteroid 2022 EU3 came within 3.4 million miles of Earth.
The other two asteroids to make the St Paddy’s Day list were called 2022 EM6 and 2022 EU6.
They’re said to be about 200 feet and 183 feet large, respectively.
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St Patrick’s Day asteroids
Before Asteroid 2013 BO76 flew by, Nasa was watching five close approach asteroids around St Patrick’s Day.
All of the asteroids made their close approaches to Earth that morning.
Asteroid 2019 PH1 was the largest at 203 feet wide.
The closest approach came from a slightly smaller space rock called 2022 EL6.
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Youngest asteroids ever found in Solar System
Researchers have found a pair of asteroids orbiting the Sun that was formed under 300 years ago.
Details of the Astronomical discovery were published in a report in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The twin asteroids – dubbed 2019 PR2 and 2019 QR6 – are the youngest found in our solar system.
“It’s very exciting to find such a young asteroid pair that was formed only about 300 years ago, which was like this morning – not even yesterday – in astronomical timescales,” astronomer Petr Fatka of the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences said.
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Asteroid captured in rare shot, continued
Ahead of the relatively close approach, scientists at the Virtual Telescope Project (VTP) captured an image of the asteroid in the night sky.
It was imaged using one of the Italian facility’s largest scopes at a distance of about 7.2million miles from Earth.
“This about 200 meters large asteroid will reach its minimum distance from us on April 1 at 21:35 UTC,” VTP founder Gianluca Masi wrote.
“Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.”
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‘Potentially hazardous’ asteroid captured in rare shot
Astronomers got a rare glimpse of a potentially hazardous asteroid ahead of its scheduled pass of Earth this week.
Asteroid 2007 FF1 is expected to make a close and safe encounter with our planet on April 1, according to space trackers.
The April Fool’s asteroid will pass within 4.6million miles of our planet – which is about roughly 19 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.
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‘A pretty elaborate trick’
The Weather Channel India on Twitter shared news of the approaching asteroid with its followers on Wednesday, March 30.
“This #AprilFoolsDay, the cosmos has a pretty elaborate trick in store, with a potentially hazardous #asteroid flying past our planet on April 1!” the account noted.
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Bus-sized
Space Reference reported that Asteroid 2007 FF1, which will make a “close approach” to Earth on April Fool’s Day, is “probably between 0.116 to 0.259 kilometers in diameter.”
That makes it “roughly comparable in size to a school bus or smaller.”
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Even small asteroids can be dangerous, continued
Around 1,600 people were injured when that asteroid exploded, mostly as a result of broken glass from windows, according to NASA as cited by Newsweek.
The agency’s planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson said it was a “cosmic wake-up call.”
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Even small asteroids can be dangerous
In February 2013, an asteroid that NASA previously described as “house-sized,” so relatively small next to Asteroid 2015 DR215, exploded in the skies, Newsweek noted.
It exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk after it entered Earth’s atmosphere at around 40,000 miles per hour, and released a shock wave that obliterated windows over 200 square miles when it exploded.
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Saving Earth from asteroids, continued
Nasa said: “DART is the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact.”
The DART craft should hit a small asteroid called Dimorphos in September with the ultimate aim of moving it off course.
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Saving Earth from asteroids
Some experts are worried that Earth isn’t yet ready to defend itself from potentially deadly asteroids.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk once sparked concern when he tweeted: “a big rock will hit Earth eventually & we currently have no defense.”
Nasa is looking into having some defense methods set up, however.
It recently launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission.
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If an asteroid hit the Earth, conclusion
“So you burn things, kill everything in the ocean, and freeze the Earth, and it goes through about two years of constant winter,” Scharringhausen added.
He doesn’t think that all life on Earth would die after a large asteroid impact, since some small creatures survived the asteroid strike that once killed the dinosaurs.
Scharringhausen explained: “Not everything will die. If we’re thinking about people, the way to survive would be to get underground.”
“You could maybe ride it out in a bunker if you’ve got the supplies to make it through that period of winter where you can’t grow any edible food.”
“Maybe the finicky crops that humans like to grow won’t come through it so well, but there’s that seed repository, so if those are well-protected enough, you could get agriculture restarted.”
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What would happen if an asteroid hit Earth, continued
Experts think we’d experience fires, shock waves, heat radiation, a large crater, acid rain, and giant tsunamis if such an asteroid ended up hitting the water.
Britt Scharringhausen, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Beloit College, told Inverse: “All of the ash from the fires and all of the finer-grain debris from the impact will hang out in the atmosphere for a long time, and we get what’s called an impact winter.”
“It’s going to block the sunlight, and all that ash falling into the ocean acidifies the top layers.”
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What would happen if an asteroid hit Earth?
Depending on the size of the space rock, an asteroid impact on the Earth could be an extinction-level event, and researchers have created simulations to see just how bad it could be.
Not all asteroids would mean the end of humanity and, in fact, a space rock would have to be pretty large to kill us all.
If an asteroid the size of the one that likely killed the dinosaurs hit Earth today, things would instantly change due to the force of the impact and its knock-on effect on the environment.
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Largest asteroids: Interamnia
Interamnia has a diameter of 217.5 miles and circles the sun once every 1,950 days, or 5.34 years.
Because of its distance from Earth, it is not believed feasible to investigate Interamnia.
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Largest asteroids: Hygeia
With a diameter of 270 miles, Hygiea is ranked fourth-largest.
It is a large asteroid in the main belt, but due to its almost spherical form, it may soon be classified as a dwarf planet.
It will be the tiniest dwarf planet in our solar system if it achieves this status.
The asteroid was discovered in 1849 by astronomer Annibale de Gasparis.
Hygiea’s orbit does not bring it close to Earth, hence it is not considered potentially dangerous.
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Largest asteroids: Pallas
Pallas was discovered in 1802 and named after the Greek goddess of wisdom.
It has a diameter of around 318 miles and accounts for about 7 percent of the asteroid belt’s total mass.
Pallas’ orbit, unlike those of other asteroids, is severely inclined at 34.8 degrees, making it difficult to analyze.
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Largest asteroids: Vesta
Vesta is the second-largest asteroid in the main asteroid belt and the biggest official asteroid.
Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers discovered it in 1807.
Vesta has a diameter of 329 miles and makes up nearly 9 percent of the total mass of all asteroids.
Vesta, like Earth, is spherical and has three layers: crust, mantle, and core.
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Largest asteroids: Ceres
Ceres is the biggest asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter and was the first found in 1801, even thought to be a planet at the time.
In the 1850s, it was categorized as an asteroid, but in 2006, it was reclassified as a dwarf planet.
While it is no longer classified as an asteroid, it claims the top rank with a diameter of 580 miles.
Ceres is named after the Roman goddess of corn and harvests, and the term cereal comes from the same root.
Ceres took 1,682 Earth days, or 4.6 years, to complete one round around the sun.
Every nine hours, it completes one rotation around its axis.
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Largest known asteroids
The largest asteroids in our solar system are chunks of space debris that have shaped the space around them.
This is a list of six of the largest known asteroids:
- Ceres (583.7 miles/ 939.4 kilometers)
- Vesta (326 miles/ 525 kilometers)
- Pallas (318 miles/ 513 kilometers)
- Hygiea (270 miles/ 444 kilometers)
- Interamnia (196.7 miles/ 306 kilometers)
- 52 Europa (188.9 miles/ 306 kilometers)
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What are Trojan asteroids?
These asteroids are in the same orbit as a bigger planet, but they don’t crash because they congregate around two specific spots – L4 and L5 Lagrangian points – in the orbit.
The Sun’s and the planet’s gravitational pulls are counterbalanced by a trojan’s proclivity to fly out of orbit.
The Jupiter trojans are the most numerous of the trojan asteroids.
They are estimated to be as abundant as asteroids in the asteroid belt.
There are trojans on Mars and Neptune, and in 2011, NASA reported the finding of an Earth trojan.
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What is the Main Asteroid Belt?
The bulk of known asteroids orbits between Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt, with relatively short orbits.
There are between 1.1 and 1.9million asteroids bigger than one kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter in the belt, as well as millions of smaller ones.
The gravity of freshly created Jupiter stopped the development of planetary bodies in this region early in the solar system’s existence, causing the tiny things to smash with one another, fragmenting them into the asteroids we see today.
This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
