Good day all. With all the news, a small item was missed by everyone except astronomers. An asteroid whizzed past the Earth at 15 miles per second, and no one saw it until the last second.
This asteroid was not as big as the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, but it was large enough to destroy a city. Here are the details from Fox News:
A “city-killer” asteroid whizzed by Earth on Thursday, startling astronomers who didn’t pick up the rock’s trajectory until days before it passed the planet, according to a report. The rock, dubbed Asteroid 2019 OK, passed within 43,500 miles of Earth traveling at a speed of 15 miles a second, the Sydney Morning Herald first reported.
Now a little perspective. We have satellites in orbit that are further out then that. 43,500 miles would be like having a beer can on your head and having someone shoot it off. That is very close. It wouldn’t have taken much to shift it slightly and then WHAMMO!!
The asteroid, which was estimated to be between 187 feet and 427 feet in diameter, was discovered this week, (July 29th) by two astronomy teams in Brazil and the US — and confirmed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. It’s the largest rock to pass by Earth this year — and possibly even this decade.
“This is one of the closest approaches to Earth by an asteroid that we know of. And it’s a pretty large one,” Michael Brown, an associate professor at Monash University’s school of physics and astronomy told the paper.
“It’s impressively close. I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet. It’s a pretty big deal.”
Gee, ya think?
While the rock’s size may seem small — roughly the length of a football field — experts said the impact from Asteroid 2019 OK would have disastrous.
It would have hit with over 30 times the energy of the atomic blast at Hiroshima,” Alan Duffy, a Swinburne University astronomy, told the paper.
“It’s a city-killer asteroid. But because it’s so small, it’s incredibly hard to see until right at the last minute.”
And it would, if it impacted the ground instead of exploding in mid-air, dug a hole probably similar in size to the one in Arizona.
If it had come in, and exploded in the air, it would have had a similar effect to the one that detonated over Tunguska in 1908.That one is actually estimated to be smaller then the one that just went past. In 1908, there was no one in the area, so there were no known casualties. A few years ago, another meteor came in over Chelyabinsk, Russia that detonated and caused some injuries and damage.
Sadly though, this one missed. I can think of a number of cities that could be greatly improved by a visit form the Sweet Meteor Of Death. San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, just to name a few. Eventually, it will happen. I would prefer to be somewhere far away when it does.
Thatisall
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