Something Flew Past Earth that left Astronomers Speechless

 

the eyes of the world today stunned by this image this was debris from a meteor racing toward earth streaking across the sky there crashing into the ground in those woods actually it was an asteroid scientists say it blew by last week at a distance they describe as a close shave the risk in any one year is very low but it does happen and if it really did come about on our watch it could end civilization it almost seems like news reports and claims of asteroids lurking around the milky way have become something of a norm every other month we hear about the latest asteroid that may lead to galactic death and end our planet as we know it while most of these are false alarms every once in a while a well-guided scientist or astronomer gives us information that we wish we hadn't heard the stuff that makes your blood quicken and electricity that makes your spine tingle welcome to fact nominal and today we're going to take a look at what just flew past earth and what might be trailing in its wake a close encounter coming at us from the outer reaches of the solar system has a is traveling at very high velocity it has a tremendous amount of kinetic energy will release a hundred million megatons of energy it plows through the atmosphere in a second or two whether it's a deep ocean or not doesn't matter it's so much bigger than even the depth of the deepest ocean that it just blasts out back in April of this year the world witnessed an event that could have changed the course of human history an asteroid known as 2021 GW4 hurled towards earth at 18,700 miles per hour over eight times faster than the SR-71 Blackbird the impending asteroid was identified by scientists at the Mount Lemmon survey just north of Tucson Arizona they are a part of the superordinate project known as Catalina Sky Survey which aims to locate galactic formations that could pose a threat to earth

 while the summit tracked the impending

 asteroid's trajectory it was reported that it missed our home planet by only 12 000 miles to give you an idea of just how close that is most stationary satellites used for tv and communication orbit the earth at 22,000 miles away the asteroid that was first located on April 8th was approximately 3.5 to 7 meters long ranging from an suv size to a large school bus capable of large-scale destruction on impact experts reported that this particular asteroid was way closer than anticipated astronomer and founder of the virtual telescope project Jean Lucamasi said that it was an exceptionally close encounter he went on to say that it is very rare for an asteroid the size of 2021 g4w to be so close to earth's surface out of all the objects roaming around the earth's surface in 2021 this one was by far the closest to our planet while most people could not spot this particular asteroid with a naked eye nasa reported that its relatively small size was the reason why but even such a small asteroid is more than capable of causing destruction on our planet if it got any closer to the earth's surface most asteroids pass by earth without causing harm but there have been instances where these galactic forces have not been so forgiving the Tunguska event shortly after

 seven in the morning on June 30th

 1908 the people of Vanuvara Siberia noticed the bluish bright light zipping across the skyline within a minute cloudy skies turned to red hot fire and a large shock wave exploded onto the earth's surface knocking people off their feet and shattering windows within hundreds of miles known as the Tunguska event this was the largest reported asteroid explosion near earth's surface with an explosion equivalent to 185 Hiroshima bombs the blast flattened more than 80 million trees in seconds in an area spanning nearly 800 square miles but left no crater eyewitness reports claim that at least three people had tragically lost their lives after the explosion as well this event is the largest impact event ever recorded on earth one capable of wiping out an entire metropolitan city what is interesting about the event is that scientists and experts were not able to prove whether it was an asteroid or a comet that had entered the earth's atmosphere the most widely accepted scientific explanation is that a rocky asteroid or comet entered earth's atmosphere and then disintegrated with a bang about three to six miles or

 five to ten kilometers above the ground however if this were the case it would likely have left behind rocky fragments after blowing up like the meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk Russia did since there weren't any smoking gun remnants of a cosmic visitor ever found a team of researchers has proposed a new theory they believed that a large iron meteor hurtled toward earth and came just close enough to generate a tremendous shockwave but then the meteor curved away from our planet without breaking up with its mass and momentum carrying it onward through space if you think that's far-fetched there are even more bizarre theories that it could have been a crashed ufo or a black hole collision with earth whatever it was let's hope it doesn't pay another visit should we worry uncertainty uh in this they wanted you know an immediate answer is it going to hit us for the 40 that we have not yet found i can tell you nothing one could hit tomorrow a a threat which has a very low probability all it takes is one and we are history out of the hundreds of asteroids that have passed earth in recent history there's one that has stolen the spotlight and raised concerns within the scientific community Asteroid Bennu also known as 101955 Bennu is a carbonaceous asteroid that has a 1 in 1,750 chance of impacting earth during the years of 2178-2290 furthermore researchers were also able to identify September 24th 2182 as the most significant single date in terms of a potential impact you may be thinking that those are better odds than you winning the lotto and you're right but should we be concerned about this looming danger to put it into perspective these odds are akin to flipping a coin and having the first 11 attempts land heads or any four random people sharing a birthday in the same month the odds of this are actually one in 1750 exactly or throwing a dart at a dartboard with your eyes closed and hitting a bullseye if we were to look at data from the past the earth's atmosphere has faced these sorts of projections multiple times currently there are over 2,000 potentially dangerous near-earth asteroids or neas that are being monitored 158 of them have a diameter of more than one kilometer or 3280 feet making them two and a half times taller than the empire state building but let's not forget that it doesn't take a massive asteroid to cause widespread damage an asteroid that was only 32 feet in diameter exploded 15 miles above the bering sea in december 2019 with the force equivalent to 10 hiroshima atomic bombs the scary part no international or national space organization had detected the small celestial object before it disintegrated above the unsuspecting earth even as the late great physicist stephen hawking stated back in 2018 in his book brief answers to big questions an asteroid collision will be the biggest threat to our planet earth's insurance policy like we have seen in the past the earth has had to battle mass extinctions it has been debated that in the last 500 million years there have been five major mass extinctions that have led to 50 of the population to be completely extinguished a catastrophe of biblical proportions would lead to the reshaping of civilization would we ever be able to rebound how long would it take the possibility of large-scale destruction begs the question how can we ensure these collisions are avoided the asteroid impact and deflection assessment is a project to tackle near-earth objects and stir them away on a potential path that may avoid collision with our planets ada who work with nasa believe that it would require years of preparation in order to deflect such astronomical objects not only do these efforts require years of warning beforehand it takes decades to stir away the objects after the process has started for now these two agencies are humanity's best hope of tackling such a crisis in the near future so what do you think do we have enough resources to protect earth from a global catastrophe what would happen if an asteroid were to impact a city like los angeles or new york city tell us in the comments and once

 again thanks for reading fact nominal