The reason, the team determined, is because it was moving towards us in such a way that its motion across the night sky was counteracted by the Earth's spin. The space rock, dubbed ' 2019 OK', was the first object of its size to get that close to our planet since 1908 - but it was only spotted 24 hours before its closest approach. That was the warning of NASA-funded experts who investigated how telescopes nearly missed a 328-feet-wide asteroid that came within 43,500 miles of Earth back in 2019. However, some asteroids can 'sneak up' on us thanks to a quirk of the Earth's rotation that makes them seem like they are barely moving - making them hard to detect. This asteroid was too small to cause damage' On Friday, orbit simulation expert Tony Dunn tweeted: 'A few hours ago, newly-discovered #asteroid 2022 EB5 collided with Earth near Iceland at a speed of 18.5 km/s. Most asteroids can usually be identified with the many powerful telescopes at the disposal of astronomers. The DART 'Double Asteroid Redirection Test' mission launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California last November, and is expected to reach its target - the minor-planet moon Dimorphos - around late September this year. That is why NASA is undertaking a mission to explore the feasibility of diverting the course of an asteroid by crashing a space probe into it. One that is 3,280ft (1km) wide - similar to 138971 (2001 CB21), which flew past the Earth in early March - could trigger a worldwide annihilation, but even smaller asteroids have the potential to cause damage. The fireball smashed into the Earth at 41,600 mph and much of it landed in a lake called Chebarkul.Īsteroids are seen as one of the most dangerous natural disasters the planet could experience, especially as there is currently no way to stop them.Īn asteroid over 460ft (140 metres) wide would release an amount of energy at least 1,000 times greater than that released by the first atomic bomb if it impacted Earth, according to research from the Davidson Institute of Science, the educational arm of Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science. It hit the Earth's atmosphere with energy estimated to be equivalent to 500,000 tonnes of TNT, sending a shockwave twice around the globe that caused widespread damage and injured more than 1,600 people. The last major asteroid impact was in 2013 when a small object around 60ft (19 metres) wide exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia. This asteroid was too small to cause damage.' 'With the ongoing crisis, would Russia have identified it as an asteroid or as a rocket, and returned fire with its own missiles?' However, just imagine it would have crashed a few hours earlier over Russia. 'The impact made no damage, falling into the sea between Norway to Iceland. It reflects just a little light from the sun - it is hard to identify it,' he said. The latest asteroid was only discovered just two hours prior to hitting the Earth's atmosphere, when it was spotted by Hungarian astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky, who is based at a station that is part of the Konkoly Observatory near Budapest.Īccording to Weizmann Institute of Science astronomer Dr David Polishook - who is also part of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission to try and deflect a massive space rock - it wasn't noticed earlier because of its size. Two years ago 2019 MO also struck, the fourth asteroid to have been observed prior to impact with Earth, and generated a harmless 5-kiloton-equivalent explosion off the south coast of Puerto Rico. In 2014, a near-Earth asteroid called 2014 AA hit the Earth's atmosphere above Venezuela, while 2018 LA struck four years later and left fragments of debris near the border of Botswana and South Africa. Some 600 meteorites were later recovered from the asteroid. The first, 2008 TC3, was an 80-tonne, 13ft (4.1 metre) wide object that exploded above the Nubian Desert in Sudan in October 2008.
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