NASA has recently made a significant prediction regarding a giant asteroid that could potentially strike Earth in the future. This news has garnered widespread attention and sparked considerable public interest. The asteroid, which is currently being monitored closely by NASA scientists, poses a potential threat due to its size and trajectory. Using advanced tracking technologies and sophisticated models, NASA is meticulously analyzing the asteroid's path to better understand its movement and potential impact risk. Credit:
Giant Magellan Telescope: StudioDee10304, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_Magellan_Telescope_Primary_Mirror_Back_Surface.tif
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Donald E. Davis
G. Hüdepohl (atacamaphoto.com)/ESO
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FunTranscript
00:00Hundreds of millions of rocks orbit the Sun within the asteroid belt between Mars and
00:05Jupiter, but only some of them come relatively close to Earth.
00:09NASA classifies asteroids orbiting within 30 million miles of our planet as near-Earth
00:15objects, and inside this group, there are particularly worrisome objects.
00:20Those are so large and orbit so closely to our home planet that they could turn into
00:25a real threat to the world should a direct collision occur.
00:29At the moment, NASA is keeping a close eye on an asteroid named Bennu.
00:33It's a fairly large space object that might smash into our planet in 159 years.
00:40According to the experts, the asteroid, which was first spotted in 1999, is quite likely
00:45to drift into the orbit of our planet.
00:48If it happens, it might collide with Earth by the 24th of September, 2182.
00:56Asteroid Bennu is thought to be taller than the Empire State Building.
00:59If that hits our planet, the collision will release 1,200 megatons of energy.
01:05That's an enormous amount of energy that nothing built on Earth could produce.
01:10Scientists from NASA believe that during the flyby in the 22nd century, there's a tiny
01:15chance that the asteroid will pass through a gravitational keyhole.
01:18That's a region of space that might set the space traveler on a certain path, which
01:23could result in the asteroid crashing into Earth.
01:27Bennu flies by our planet every 6 years.
01:30It has had 3 close encounters with Earth – in 1999, 2005, and 2011.
01:36These days, scientists estimate the chance of the asteroid hitting our planet by 2182
01:42as 1 in 2,700.
01:44That's more than 5 times a person's chance of being struck by lightning.
01:50Even though Bennu's chances of colliding with Earth are quite low at the moment, the
01:54space rock has still been categorized as a quote, potentially hazardous asteroid.
02:00All because it might come as close as 4.65 million miles from Earth.
02:05That's the reason why it's also classified as a near-Earth object.
02:10Bennu is a carbon-rich asteroid that was formed in the first 10 million years of the history
02:15of the Solar System.
02:17That's around 4.5 billion years ago.
02:20No wonder this space body holds precious clues to the origin and development of the rocky
02:25planets of our Solar System, which are, as you recall, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.
02:31Even better, it may contain organic molecules similar to those that are crucial for life
02:36to evolve.
02:37In 2020, NASA's OSIRIS-REx managed to briefly touch the surface of the asteroid.
02:43They collected some samples and propelled off the space rock afterward.
02:47For NASA, it was the first mission of this kind.
02:52But it won't probably come as a surprise that Bennu isn't the only asteroid we should
02:56worry about.
02:58Asteroid 99942, Apophis, is another space body we'd better watch out for.
03:04It's a near-Earth object about 1,100 feet across.
03:08It was discovered in 2004, and at first, it was identified as one of the most dangerous
03:13asteroids ever detected.
03:16Apophis gained notoriety very fast.
03:19It was believed to pose a serious threat to Earth.
03:22Experts predicted that it would come uncomfortably close to our planet in 2029.
03:27Luckily, after a more careful examination of Apophis and its orbit, astronomers concluded
03:33that there was no risk of the asteroid colliding with our planet for at least a century.
03:39The risk of an impact in 2029 was ruled out completely, as well as the potential impact
03:44that could be caused by the asteroid's close approach in 2036.
03:49Interestingly, until March 2021, there was a small chance of a collision in 2068.
03:57But then Apophis made a flyby of Earth, and astronomers took this chance to use powerful
04:02radars to estimate the asteroid's orbit around the Sun more precisely.
04:07This allowed them to rule out any impact risk for at least the next 100 years.
04:13The reason why such discoveries make us so worried is that even a relatively small asteroid
04:19– the size of a house – can wreak havoc upon colliding with our planet.
04:24And if an asteroid is larger than 0.6 miles across, astronomers call it a planet destroyer.
04:31The impact energy released by such an asteroid after striking Earth could be devastating.
04:35That's why knowing where such asteroids are and in what direction they're moving
04:40is crucial.
04:42The problem is that our capability to protect the planet from asteroid impacts is not top-notch
04:48yet.
04:49If such a catastrophe was about to occur, we would need some time to prepare because
04:53an asteroid collision is no joke.
04:56Probably the most well-known asteroid impact site is the Chicxulub Crater.
05:01It's the evidence of the terrifying collision that led to the extinction of dinosaurs.
05:06Strangely, this crater isn't very visible.
05:09But some others are.
05:10For example, Beringer Crater in Arizona, which is also called Meteor Crater.
05:15It looks rather blood-chilling when you think about the collision that led to its appearance.
05:22In any case, we now know that space rocks hit not only the Earth but also the Moon,
05:27Mercury, and Mars.
05:29No rocky planet in the Solar System is safe from asteroid impacts.
05:33That's why we have an entire scientific enterprise whose goal is to find and catalog
05:38the asteroid population of the Solar System.
05:42It might sound a bit scary, but there are around 25,000 asteroids larger than 460 feet
05:48in diameter near the orbit of our planet.
05:52Such a space rock is large enough to wipe an entire city off the face of the Earth.
05:57So far, less than 50% of such asteroids have been detected and tracked.
06:02There are also an estimated 230,000 objects equal to or larger than 160 feet in size.
06:10Those are capable of destroying a concentrated urban area.
06:13And still, fewer than 8% of those have been detected.
06:17There are also tens of millions of smaller near-Earth objects.
06:21They are larger than 33 feet across and might cause some surface damage.
06:26Less than 1% of such small space bodies have been discovered so far.
06:32Now the thing is, the inner Solar System is extremely challenging for asteroid search.
06:38Each night, there are only two 10-minute windows when astronomers can observe the region.
06:43All because the sun's glare creates a very bright background glow.
06:47Plus, the atmosphere of our planet also distorts and blurs observations.
06:52Spotting asteroids in such conditions is beyond the capabilities of most telescopes.
06:57A unique instrument is needed to fulfill this task.
07:01And the tool of choice is the Dark Energy Camera at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
07:07in Chile.
07:08This device wasn't designed to hunt asteroids.
07:11Astronomers built it to search for another elusive target, dark energy, the mysterious
07:15force driving the expansion of the Universe.
07:19The DEC is supposed to observe hundreds of millions of galaxies.
07:23That's why it's both wide and deep.
07:26This way, it can both peer deep into the Universe and capture a wide field of view, which helps
07:31it record the motions of galaxies and the conditions in the early age of the Universe.
07:38But it also means that the DEC is perfectly suited to spotting asteroids near the sun.
07:44Inner asteroids are rare, and deep images are necessary because such asteroids are faint.
07:50Scientists need to be able to fight both the bright twilight sky near our star and the
07:54distorting effect of Earth's atmosphere, and the DEC can help them achieve their goal.
08:00The Dark Energy Camera was built to carry out the Dark Energy Survey, which finished
08:05in 2019.
08:07Now astronomers can direct the power of the camera towards other tasks.
08:11They claim that the DEC's survey is one of the most sensitive searches ever performed
08:16for objects near Venus' orbit and within the orbit of our planet.
08:20It provides us a great chance to find out what kinds of objects are lurking in the inner
08:25solar system.
08:28That's it for today, so hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like
08:37and share it with your friends.
08:38Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!