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Giant asteroid passes just 120,000 miles from Earth

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Published: 06:53, 10 January 2017   Update: 15:18, 26 July 2020
Giant asteroid passes just 120,000 miles from Earth

Risingbd Desk: An asteroid as big as a 10-story building has passed by Earth at a distance half that of the Moon, researchers have revealed.


The asteroid, dubbed 2017 AG13, was only spotted only Saturday by the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey.


It is between 50 and 111 feet (15 to 34 meters) long, and when it passed by Earth, 2017 AG3 was moving at 9.9 miles per second (16 kilometers per second).


The near-Earth object, or NEO, came within about half the distance that the moon is from Earth, according to Slooh.


'This is moving very quickly, very nearby to us,' Eric Feldman, an astronomer with Slooh, said during a live broadcast of the flyby at 7:47 a.m. ET on January 9.


'This one has a particularly elliptical orbit.


'It actually crosses the orbits of two planets, Venus and Earth.


 Slooh's broadcast said 2017 AG3 was 'roughly the same size as the asteroid that struck Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013,' meaning had it hit, the effects would have been similar.


Its next close approach to Earth is expected on December 28, 2017.


'It is not that uncommon of an event, which is one of the reasons it is interesting,' Mark Sykes, director and CEO of the Planetary Science Institute, told Business Insider in an email.


About 38 more 'close approaches' like asteroid 2017 AG3's are expected within the month of January alone, according to NASA's Near Earth Object Program.


For years scientists have been trying to work out how to deal with the threat of an asteroid, which could hit us with little or no warning.


Now the White House has released an official document describing the plan if a meteor or asteroid was to head our way, and it shows we are under-prepared.


The White House published its 'National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy'.


The document 'seeks to improve our nation's preparedness to address the hazard of near-Earth object (NEO) impacts by enhancing the integration of existing national and international assets and adding important capabilities that are currently lacking.'


NEOs are asteroids or comets that have an orbit that brings them near or into Earth's orbit.


If one of these was to zoom towards Earth in the future, it would not be the first time.


A 56 foot (17-metre) meteor that struck Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, injured more than 1,000 people came with no warning.


This is why one of the strategies outlined in the document is to improve on Nasa's methods of detecting NEOs before it is too late.


In seven main goals described in the document, the White House also focuses on improving modelling and predicting where NEOs will travel.


The country also plans to improve it emergency alert systems and invest in hi-tech space probes that could annihilate threats.


The document notes, as with other low-probability, high-consequence hazards, 'potential NEO impacts pose a significant and complex challenge.'


'This Strategy is a step in addressing the myriad challenges of managing and reducing the risks posed by both large and small NEOs,' it claims.


At the end of last year, Nasa warned we are not prepared for an asteroid strike.


Dr Joseph Nuth, a researcher at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December.


He said: 'The biggest problem, basically, is there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment.'


While dangerous asteroids and comets rarely hit Earth, Dr Nuth warned that the threat was always there.


He said: 'They are the extinction-level events, things like dinosaur killers, they're 50 to 60 million years apart, essentially.


'You could say, of course, we're due, but it's a random course at that point.'


Nasa is working on a series of missions including an asteroid redirect mission, that will see a robotic spaceship visit an asteroid to create an orbiting base for astronauts.


The space agency has a team of scientists who are always watching the skies for potential threats.


But while the US is upping its tactics to seek out the dangerous space rocks, other countries might be even less prepared.


Source: The Mail


risingbd/Jan 10, 2017/Mukul

 

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