Breadcrumb Trail links
- PMN Business
Article content
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) –
The discovery of an asteroid the size of a small truck just days before it will fly past Earth on Thursday, albeit one that poses no threat to humans, highlights a blind spot in our ability to predict those that could actually cause damage, say the astronomers.
Financial Post top stories
Sign up to receive daily breaking news from the Financial Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
By clicking the signup button, you agree to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails or any newsletter. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300
Thanks for signing up!
A welcome email is on its way. If you don’t see it, please check your spam folder.
The next issue of Financial Post Top Stories will be in your inbox soon.
We encountered a problem registering you. Please, try again
Article content
NASA has for years prioritized the discovery of asteroids much larger and more existentially threatening than 2023 BU, the tiny space rock that stretches 2,200 miles from Earth’s surface, closer than some satellites. If it traveled to Earth, it would be pulverized into the atmosphere, with only small fragments likely reaching land.
Advertisement 2
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
Article content
But 2023 BU is at the smaller end of a size group of asteroids ranging from 5 to 50 meters in diameter, which includes ones as big as an Olympic swimming pool. Objects of this size are difficult to detect until they get much closer to Earth, complicating any effort to prepare for one that could affect a populated area.
The probability of a space rock called a meteor hitting Earth when it enters the atmosphere in this size range is relatively low, scaling with the size of the asteroid: a 5-meter rock is expected to hit Earth once a year, and a 50-meter rock once every thousand years, according to NASA.
But with current capabilities, astronomers cannot see when such a rock is headed for Earth until days ago.
“We don’t know where most of the asteroids are that could cause local to regional devastation,” said Terrick Daley, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
Advertising 3
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
Article content
The roughly 20-meter meteor that exploded in 2013 over Chelyabinsk, Russia, is a once-in-100-year occurrence, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It created a shock wave that broke tens of thousands of windows and caused $33 million in damage, and no one saw it before it entered Earth’s atmosphere.
Some astronomers believe that relying only on statistical probabilities and estimates of asteroid populations is an unnecessary risk when improvements can be made in NASA’s ability to detect them.
“How many natural hazards are there that we could actually do something about and prevent for a billion dollars? There aren’t many,” said Daley, whose work focuses on protecting Earth from dangerous asteroids.
Advertising 4
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
Article content
AVOIDING A REALLY BAD DAY
One major upgrade to NASA’s detection arsenal will be the NEO Surveyor, a $1.2 billion telescope under development that will launch nearly a million miles from Earth and observe a wide field of asteroids. It promises a significant advantage over today’s ground-based telescopes, which are hampered by daylight and the Earth’s atmosphere.
This new telescope will help NASA meet a goal set by Congress in 2005: to detect 90% of the total expected amount of asteroids larger than 140 meters, or those large enough to destroy everything from a region to an entire continent.
“With Surveyor, we’re really focusing on finding the one asteroid that can make a really bad day for a lot of people,” said Amy Meinzer, NEO Surveyor principal investigator. “But we are also tasked with getting good statistics on smaller sites, up to the size of the Chelyabinsk site.”
Advertising 5
This ad has not yet loaded, but your article continues below.
Article content
NASA is years behind its congressional goal of completion by 2020. The agency proposed last year to cut the telescope’s 2023 budget by three-quarters and delay the launch by two years to 2028 “to support higher priority missions’ elsewhere in NASA’s science portfolio.
Asteroid detection took on greater importance last year after NASA rammed a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into an asteroid to test its ability to eject a potentially dangerous space rock from a collision course with Earth.
The successful demonstration, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), validated for the first time a method of protecting the planet.
“The NEO Surveyor is extremely important, especially now that we know from DART that we can really do something about it,” Daly said.
“So, for God’s sake, we have to find these asteroids.” (Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Andrea Ritchie)
Share this article on your social network
Comments
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourages all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments can take up to an hour to be moderated before they appear on the site. Please keep your comments relevant and respectful. We’ve enabled email notifications – you’ll now receive an email if you get a reply to your comment, there’s an update to a comment thread you follow, or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.
Add Comment