Asteroid 2007 FF1 LIVE – NASA says ‘Hazardous’ space rock makes ‘close approach’ to Earth at 29,800mph
AN asteroid made a "close approach" to Earth on April 1, 2022, while being watched closely by space enthusiasts.
Asteroid 2007 FF1 made a "hazardous" close encounter with our planet around 4.35pm on Friday - flying within approximately 4.6 million miles of Earth and at a speed of 29,800 mph, reported.
Any object that comes within 4.65million miles of us is considered "potentially hazardous" by cautious space organizations.
Meanwhile, Asteroid 2013 BO76 hurtled past Earth on Thursday, March 24, at a staggering 30,000 miles per hour, according to Nasa trackers.
At up to 450 meters across, it's roughly the same size as the Empire State Building and fortunately, the speedy object missed our planet by some distance.
It was estimated to fly by at a safe distance of around 3.1million miles, according to data on Nasa's Near-Earth Object database.
Read our asteroid 'close approach' live blog for the latest news and updates...
Saving Earth from asteroids, continued
Nasa : "DART is the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact."
The DART craft should hit a small asteroid called Dimorphos in September with the ultimate aim of moving it off course.
Saving Earth from asteroids
Some experts are worried that Earth isn't yet ready to defend itself from potentially deadly asteroids.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk once sparked concern when he tweeted: "a big rock will hit Earth eventually & we currently have no defense."
Nasa is looking into having some defense methods set up, however.
It recently launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission.
NEO mission
Nasa is hoping to launch its Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission in 2026.
If the agency does so, it will finally have a spacecraft dedicated only to hunting asteroids.
The hope is that the NEO Surveyor craft will find 90 percent of asteroids that are 460 feet or larger within the first decade of its mission.
What is a NEO?
Nasa considers anything passing near Earth's orbit a Near-Earth Object (NEO).
Thousands of NEOs are tracked by scientists to monitor whether they're on a collision course with our planet.
Asteroids that approached Earth: 2022 EZ1
Amor-group Asteroid 2022 EZ1 flew near Earth around midnight UTC on March 6, after being studied for only four days before.
The 51-foot object approached Earth from 4.55million miles away, and is set to orbit nearby again in 875 days.
Asteroids that approached Earth: 2022 EM
This giant Apollo-class asteroid approached Earth on March 6, reveals.
2022 EM flew past Earth at a distance of 4.41million miles.
Asteroids that approached Earth: 2022 DT3
2022 DT3 flew past Earth on March 6, according to table, at almost 12 miles per second.
The 71-foot long asteroid was about 2.33million miles away from Earth.
Asteroids that approached Earth: 2022 DO1
2022 DO1 approached Earth on March 6 around 9:40pm.
The celestial object is about 48-feet in size, and it came within 1.57million miles of Earth.
Asteroids that approached Earth: 2020 DC
First observed on February 16, this small body is approximately 51 feet in size.
On March 7, the Apollo-class Asteroid approached the Earth as its orbit crossed the Earth’s orbit, but it was not considered potentially hazardous.
The house-sized body came 924,000 miles away from Earth.
What is considered a ‘close approach’?
If an asteroid comes within 4.65million miles of Earth and is over a certain size, it is considered “potentially hazardous” by cautious space agencies.
How are asteroids found, continued
NASA has been leading a program to find and track near-Earth asteroids since around 2000.
According to , programs like the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona and the Pan-STARRS telescopes in Hawaii specialize in locating asteroids and have identified hundreds of them.
How are asteroids found?
Giuseppe Piazzi, an Italian priest and astronomer, Ceres, the first and biggest asteroid, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, while drawing a star map in 1801.
Ceres, while being categorized as a dwarf planet today, is responsible for a quarter of the mass of all known asteroids in or around the main asteroid belt.
Where are asteroids found?
Asteroids are in three areas of the solar system.
The majority of asteroids are found in a large ring between Mars and Jupiter’s orbits.
More than 200 asteroids bigger than 60 miles (100 kilometers) in diameter are found in this primary asteroid belt.
According to NASA, the asteroid belt includes between 1.1million and 1.9million asteroids bigger than one kilometer (3,281 feet) in diameter, as well as millions of smaller ones.
What is 162173 Ryugu?
162173 Ryugu is a near-Earth object and a potentially hazardous asteroid from the Apollo group.
It is about 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) in diameter and was discovered on May 10, 1999, by astronomers with the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research at the Lincoln Lab's ETS, which is located near Socorro, New Mexico.
St Patrick’s Day asteroids, continued
A 78 foot asteroid called 2022 EU3 was the last close approach asteroid to shoot past Earth on St Patrick’s Day.
Asteroid 2022 EU3 came within 3.4 million miles of Earth.
The other two asteroids to make the St Paddy’s Day list were called 2022 EM6 and 2022 EU6.
They’re said to be about 200 feet and 183 feet large, respectively.
St Patrick’s Day asteroids
Before Asteroid 2013 BO76, Nasa was watching five close approach asteroids around St Patrick’s Day.
All of the asteroids made their close approaches to Earth that morning.
Asteroid 2019 PH1 was the largest at 203 feet wide.
The closest approach came from a slightly smaller space rock called 2022 EL6.
Even small asteroids can be dangerous, continued
Around 1,600 people were injured when that asteroid exploded, mostly as a result of broken glass from windows, according to NASA as cited by Newsweek.
The agency’s planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson said it was a “cosmic wake-up call.”
Even small asteroids can be dangerous
In February 2013, an asteroid that NASA previously described as “house-sized” exploded in the skies, noted.
It exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk after it entered Earth’s atmosphere at around 40,000 miles per hour, and released a shock wave that obliterated windows over 200 square miles when it exploded.
What are Trojan asteroids?
are in the same orbit as a bigger planet, but they don't crash because they congregate around two specific spots – L4 and L5 Lagrangian points – in the orbit.
The Sun's and the planet's gravitational pulls are counterbalanced by a trojan's proclivity to fly out of orbit.
The Jupiter trojans are the most numerous of the trojan asteroids.
They are estimated to be as abundant as asteroids in the asteroid belt.
There are trojans on Mars and Neptune, and in 2011, NASA reported the finding of an Earth trojan.
Types of asteroids- M-types
The M-types (nickel-iron): are made of metal. The compositional variations between asteroids are linked to how distant they originated from the Sun. After they formed and partially melted, some endured tremendous temperatures, with iron sinking to the center and driving basaltic (volcanic) lava to the surface.
Types of asteroids- S-types
The S-types (stony) asteroids are made up of nickel-iron silicate minerals.
Types of asteroids- C-Type
C-Type (chondrite) are the most common asteroids. They are most likely made up of clay and silicate rocks and have a black look. They are among the solar system’s oldest ancient things.
If an asteroid hit the Earth, part three
“So you burn things, kill everything in the ocean, and freeze the Earth, and it goes through about two years of constant winter,” Scharringhausen added.
He doesn’t think that all life on Earth would die after a large asteroid impact since some small creatures survived the asteroid strike that once killed the dinosaurs.
Scharringhausen explained: “Not everything will die. If we’re thinking about people, the way to survive would be to get underground.”
“You could maybe ride it out in a bunker if you’ve got the supplies to make it through that period of winter where you can’t grow any edible food.”
“Maybe the finicky crops that humans like to grow won’t come through it so well, but there’s that seed repository, so if those are well-protected enough, you could get agriculture restarted.”
What would happen if an asteroid hit Earth, continued
Experts think we’d experience fires, shock waves, heat radiation, a large crater, acid rain and giant tsunamis if such an asteroid ended up hitting water.
, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Beloit College, told : “All of the ash from the fires and all of the finer-grain debris from the impact will hang out in the atmosphere for a long time, and we get what’s called an impact winter.”
“It’s going to block the sunlight, and all that ash falling into the ocean acidifies the top layers.”
What would happen if an asteroid hit Earth?
Depending on the size of the space rock, an asteroid impact on the Earth could be an extinction-level event, and researchers have created simulations to see just how bad it could be.
Not all asteroids would mean the end of humanity and, in fact, a space rock would have to be pretty large to kill us all.
If an asteroid the size of the one that likely killed the dinosaurs hit Earth today, things would instantly change due to the force of the impact and its knock-on effect on the environment.