![]() ![]() “I think that, overall, the situation has improved. “The impact probability went up just a little bit but it’s not a significant change, the impact probability is pretty much the same,” lead author Davide Farnocchia, who works at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies in California, said during a news conference held Wednesday (Aug. And besides, the lessons the research offers for asteroid trajectory calculation could reduce concerns about potential impacts by other asteroids more than enough to compensate. Technically, that’s a small increase in risk, but the scientists behind the new research say they aren’t worried about a potential impact. As a result, scientists behind new research now say they’re confident that the asteroid’s total impact probability through 2300 is just 1 in 1,750. While a slightly higher risk than past estimates, it represents a minuscule change in an already minuscule risk, NASA said. From the report: Estimates produced before OSIRIS-REx arrived at the space rock tallied the cumulative probability of a Bennu impact between the years 21 at 1 in 2,700, according to NASA. “As a result, scientists behind new research now say they’re confident that the asteroid’s total impact probability through 2300 is just 1 in 1,750,” reports. But that point, it seems, is unlikely to come before the year 3000.Ĭorrection: We have updated the story post-publishing to better reflect the lack of definitive certainty associated with these findings, and amended the impact risk of 1994 PC1 from 0.000151% to 0.00151%.NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been orbiting an asteroid called Bennu for more than two years to fine-tune the agency’s existing models of its trajectory. Neither will Bennu, a 1/3-mile-wide pile of flying space rubble. “At some point, there’ll be something heading this way,” says O’Brien. Contrary to what you may have read, Earth will not be devastated by the asteroid Apophis on April 13, 2029. But there’s hope that new surveys of the sky will give us a much higher completeness rate.” The Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile, set to begin a broad survey of the solar system next year, will contribute important findings.įor the time being, however, it looks as though civilization as a whole can rest easy. “But it depends on how many there are, which is really uncertain,” he says. that promises to Scientists fine-tune odds of asteroid Bennu hitting Earth with. For asteroids larger than 140 meters across, which could destroy a city, NASA’s catalogue is about 40% complete, says Fuentes-Muñoz. 1, a has Bennu called asteroid dangerous, year the and now between Earth. “Smaller objects still cause a lot of damage,” says O’Brien.Įfforts are being made to track smaller asteroids. In 2013, for example, a 20-meter-wide meteor exploded above Chelyabinsk in Russia, injuring more than 1,000 people and shattering windows, despite its small size. However, smaller asteroids, which are much more plentiful, still pose a risk to Earth. That object, a stony asteroid about a kilometer wide, was found to have a 0.000151 chance of. “The fact that they can now extend that period is a good thing,” she says. Of the asteroids modeled by the team, the one with the highest risk of impact was called 1994 PC1. As a result, scientists behind new research now say they’re confident that the asteroid’s total impact probability through 2300 is just 1 in 1,750, reports. Áine O’Brien from the University of Glasgow, a planetary scientist who tracks incoming meteors and who was not involved in the study, says it is good to see simulations predicting large-asteroid impacts beyond 100 years. “Just in case, we are doing our due diligence.” “In general, asteroid impacts capable of causing significant damage to Earth are extremely unlikely,” says Farnocchia. The study was partly inspired by a request from the US Congress, which in 1998 asked NASA to catalogue 90% of the near-Earth asteroids larger than a kilometer in size. “But it will be a very good scientific opportunity, because it’s going to be a huge asteroid that’s very close to us.” “It’s still not likely that it’s going to collide,” says Fuentes-Muñoz. While incredibly small, this was 10 times higher than the risk posed by any other asteroid. That object, a stony asteroid about a kilometer wide, was found to have a 0.00151% chance of passing within the orbit of the moon in the next 1,000 years. Of the asteroids modeled by the team, the one with the highest risk of impact was called 1994 PC1. By identifying “the fraction of the orbit that can bring the object close to Earth,” the team was able to model impact risks much farther out than has been possible with other methods. “We came up with a less computationally intense approach to take a peek at a longer time interval,” says Davide Farnocchia from NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, a coauthor on the study.
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