#Comet hitting earth how to
#Comet hitting earth professional

space agency called the asteroid “potentially hazardous”, didn’t they?Ī quick bit of research, a quick Google search, or a quick talk to an expert, however, will reveal the truth behind the story. They are easy stories to write, perhaps even quite fun, and it’s often easy to attribute the story to NASA too.

#Comet hitting earth how to

It had gone undetected before it hit, leading to many discussions on how to improve our tracking of asteroids.īut scaremongering stories that warn of killer asteroids imminently hitting Earth do not help. In 2013, for example, the infamous Chelyabinsk meteor measuring just 20 meters across exploded in the air above Russia, injuring hundreds. There is, of course, always a risk that smaller asteroids will hit Earth undetected. In the 2020s, a joint NASA-ESA mission will test just that, on an asteroid that poses us little danger. One idea is to hit an incoming asteroid with a human-made impactor far in advance, to slightly change its course so that it misses Earth. It has since led to discussions on what we would do if an asteroid were heading our way, however. But it remains one of the biggest threats of an asteroid impact in recorded history – probably one that the media would have a field day with today. It was the highest an asteroid has ever reached on the Torino Scale.Īpophis was later downgraded to a level 1, and eventually level zero, following further calculations. Observations suggested that the risk of an impact would be as high as one in 60 on 13 April, 2029. In December 2004, an asteroid then known as 2004 MN4, and now called 99942 Apophis, reached level 4 on the Torino Scale. You wouldn't believe how many stock images there are of asteroids hitting Earth. Currently no asteroid is rated above zero. Near-Earth asteroids are rated on something called the Torino Scale, ranging from zero (there is essentially no chance of a collision) to 10 (a collision is certain, threatening the future of civilization as we know it). One day we may well get hit by a civilization-ending asteroid, but fortunately we currently know of no such sizeable asteroids on a collision course with Earth. An asteroid that regularly makes close passes could, one day, have its orbit slightly altered onto an impact course with Earth.

This label does not necessarily relate to their risk of impact now, but in the future. Perhaps not helping the matter is that NASA classes any asteroid that passes within 7.5 million kilometers of our planet as a “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” (PHA). These big chunks of rock are traveling at huge speeds! They will kill us all! And for anyone that takes a look, those numbers can seem alarming. NASA provides a bit of information on those asteroids – their sizes, their speed, and the distance they will pass us, for example. In the rest of February 2020 alone there are more than a dozen other smaller asteroids making close passes with Earth.

Eliot Herman, a retired professor at the University of Arizona and an amateur astronomer, who has captured images of the comet with a remote telescope, said it will be interesting to see if 12P/Pons-Brooks has more eruptions over the next few months and if they result in the same 'devil horns' seen now.Because there are so many asteroids passing Earth, information on them can often be limited – NASA isn’t going to issue a press release about every event. The shape of 12P/Pons-Brooks's coma - the fuzzy cloud around the nucleus of the comet - has an unusual shape - two 'devil horns' - giving the celestial body its nickname.ĭr. 'There aren't that many comets that have outbursts, these sudden increases in brightness, that are so strong, and even fewer that have them a couple of times during one orbit. Theodore Kareta, a postdoctoral researcher at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, told ABC News.

#Comet hitting earth professional

'These outbursts … brought this object from being dim enough that you can only really see it with big professional telescopes to, in a couple of cases, something people can see from their backyard,' Dr. 12P/Pons-Brooks, however, has been undergoing huge increases in brightness with two major eruptions, the first occurring in July 2023 and another earlier this month.