Asteroid passes earth closer than the moon

[Ozfactor 1,453]

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/a-massive-asteroid-zoomed-terrifyingly-close-to-earth-and-noone-knew-it-was-coming/news-story/3bd761d6e59d723d4c973b0cf9ecb7db

 

According to The Sun, last Sunday (August 28) a huge asteroid dubbed 2016 QA2 zoomed past Earth at terrifyingly close quarters, coming within 50,000 miles of our lovely home planet.

Nothing to worry about, you might think, until you hear that it was only spotted the day before by the SONEAR Observatory in Brazil.

[Dark_Grey 14,539]

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NASA is currently aiming to detect 90 percent of all asteroids 450ft in size or larger by 2020 but as things stand, a lack of telescopes and manpower means that it is nowhere near achieving that goal.

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That said however, the chances of the Earth actually being hit by an apocalyptic asteroid anytime soon are thankfully very small indeed.

Aren't those statements a little conflicting?

[paperdyer 1,589]

Not really.  I'm sure there are enough mathematical models to back-up the statement. I'm more worried about the 10% of the asteroids that NASA will miss, like this one.

[Parsec 1,233]

Well NASA is not the only one

ESA's SSAP

[Gecks 175]

I think the space agencies do extremely well cataloguing the astroids, but of course they will never be able to spot everthing, especially the smaller ones.
At the end of the day if an asteroids going to hit, lets just hope its somewhere unpopulated.
In saying that NASA, if you could change the trajectory of one and aim it at my work....that would be great!

[Waspie_Dwarf 15,628]

8 hours ago, Ozfactor said:

According to The Sun, last Sunday (August 28) a huge asteroid dubbed 2016 QA2 zoomed past Earth at terrifyingly close quarters, coming within 50,000 miles of our lovely home planet.

Since when has 35 metres been "huge"? I wouldn't want to be in a city that was hit by such an object but this is not an object that can cause mass extinctions or global devastation.

[Nzo 272]

'That said however, the chances of the Earth actually being hit by an apocalyptic asteroid anytime soon are thankfully very small indeed.'

Lets hope those are not famous last words!

[MWoo7 9,875]

Yeah it was small THANKFULLY!

Mathematical Models ? kind of similar to economic graphs eh. Oh and wind.

Why are they always surprised?? Then next one we might get an early warning because some kid in Hawaii had his telescope out.  Surprised , just detected HA! at least they didn't hide that fact.

Like the conflicting bit

[Codenwarra 327]

Detected by SONEAR observatory at Oliviera in Minas Gerais, Brazil. This observatory is funded and maintained by amateur astronomers. So, nothing much to do with NASA or ESA.

I'll sit corrected but I believed that the co-ordination centre for asteroids is in Spain and is not primarily a NASA operation.

I don't know what kind of telescopes are needed for this but I suggest that they would have to be reasonably large and therefore pretty scarce. If there were three times as many and manned all the time there is still no guarantee that they would detect everything because of cloudy weather.

[universal skeptic 23]

Wow! That was a close one! What about the next one? Should we be afraid?

[paperdyer 1,589]

On ‎8‎/‎31‎/‎2016 at 10:02 PM, MWoo7 said:

Yeah it was small THANKFULLY!

Mathematical Models ? kind of similar to economic graphs eh. Oh and wind.

Why are they always surprised?? Then next one we might get an early warning because some kid in Hawaii had his telescope out.  Surprised , just detected HA! at least they didn't hide that fact.

Like the conflicting bit

You've been watching scifi movies again, haven't you.  I can't remember the name of the one where the kid finds the chunk that's going to hit Earth.

[MWoo7 9,875]

HA~ ! ah no I was just making light of it, I remember projects regarding weather or oil spills etc. simulations that each team slightly changed a var (params / variable)here and there till it came out right or only using certain parts of data to get a certain look to a graph, ever read ? oh I hate that, can't remember, author was Crighton ? ..... about media wars climate change global this and that, very detailed book, oh Micheal and title was like ? State of or ? something state.
So, there's actually is a movie where a kid seen an asteroid ? HA! wouldn't doubt it.

Edited September 3, 2016 by MWoo7
added '

[draco inquisitorem 23]

Hmm. Would it be possible that the reason they missed it was because it was a small one? One big enough to have immense destructive capabilities would be more noticeable, right?

[MWoo7 9,875]

Oh right on RIGHT ON there draco inquisitor I agreee, weeeeeeell I hope and wish that you are wholly correct. I can't stand the thought that some say oh we are scanning and we would see something, when in reality, they fly by earth all the time and we didn't even have a clue, well until it was right on us, like a few hours etc. So , in that regard I so so wish that you are 100 percent correct. Thanks for your two bits. Very important.