Credit & Copyright: Daniel LSpez
(El Cielo de Canarias)
Explanation:
There it goes.
That small spot moving in front of background stars in the
above video is a
potentially dangerous asteroid passing above the Earth's atmosphere.
This past Friday, the 50-meter wide asteroid
2012 DA14 just missed the Earth,
passing not only inside the orbit of the Moon, which is
unusually close
for an asteroid of this size, but also inside the orbit of
geosynchronous satellites.
Unfortunately, asteroids this big or
bigger
strike the Earth
every 1000 years or so.
Were 2012
DA14
to have hit the Earth, it could have devastated a
city-sized landscape,
or stuck an ocean and raised
dangerous tsunamis.
Although finding and tracking potentially dangerous asteroids is a primary concern
of modern astronomy,
these small bodies or ice and rock are typically so dim that only a
few percent of them have been found, so far.
Even smaller chunks of ice and rock, like the (unrelated) spectacular meteors that
streaked over Russia and
California over the past few days, are even harder to find --
but pose less danger.
Gallery:
Videos and images of 2012 DA14
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 |
Yanvar' Fevral' Mart Aprel' Mai Iyun' Iyul' Avgust Sentyabr' Oktyabr' Noyabr' Dekabr' |
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
|
Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami:
asteroid - asteroidy - asteroidnaya opasnost'
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