Potentially Hazardous Asteroids Counted

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA Survey Counts Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

PASADENA, Calif. -- Observations from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have led to the best assessment yet of our solar system's population of potentially hazardous asteroids. The results reveal new information about their total numbers, origins and the possible dangers they may pose.

Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth's, coming within five million miles (about eight million kilometers), and they are big enough to survive passing through Earth's atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.

The new results come from the asteroid-hunting portion of the WISE mission, called NEOWISE. The project sampled 107 PHAs to make predictions about the entire population as a whole. Findings indicate there are roughly 4,700 PHAs, plus or minus 1,500, with diameters larger than 330 feet (about 100 meters). So far, an estimated 20 to 30 percent of these objects have been found.

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Edited June 8, 2012 by Waspie_Dwarf
Modified tags

[Mentalcase]

Thought this part was cool...

potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are closely aligned with the plane of our solar system than previous models suggested.

[Ashotep]

We will get it again one of these days. Hopefully not for a long time.