Credit & Copyright: NASA,
JPL-Caltech
Explanation:
Are asteroids dangerous?
Some are, but the likelihood of a dangerous asteroid striking the Earth during any
given year is low.
Because some past mass
extinction events have been linked to asteroid impacts, however,
humanity has made it a priority to find and catalog those
asteroids
that may one day affect
life on Earth.
Pictured above
are the orbits of the over 1,000 known
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).
These documented tumbling
boulders
of rock and ice are over 140 meters across and
will pass within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth --
about 20 times the distance to the Moon.
Although none of them will
strike the Earth in the
next 100 years --
not all PHAs have been discovered, and past 100 years, many orbits become hard
to predict.
Were an asteroid of this size to
impact the Earth,
it could raise dangerous tsunamis,
for example.
Of course rocks and ice bits of much smaller size
strike the Earth every day,
usually pose no danger, and sometimes creating
memorable fireball and
meteor displays.
Gallery:
Highlights of the 2013 Perseids Meteor Shower
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.
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