Potentially dangerous asteroid size of skyscraper to fly near Earth on Halloween

October 31, 2022  12:22

A recently discovered potentially dangerous asteroid the size of a skyscraper will fly near Earth on Halloween.

According to NASA, the asteroid, named 2022 RM4, has a diameter of 330 to 740 meters -- just under the height of the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is 828 meters tall.

On November 1, 2022, RM4 will fly to our planet at the closest distance -- 2.3 million kilometers, which is only 6 times the distance between the Moon and Earth. This is extremely close by cosmic standards. The speed of the asteroid when it flies by us will be about 84,500 km/h, which is about 68 times the speed of sound.

On November 2, 2022, the asteroid can be observed from the southern hemisphere. Scientists will try to observe it using the 70-meter Deep Space Communications Station 43 of the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex and a compact array of Australian telescopes.

Near-Earth_asteroid_2022_RM4

On November 3, 2022, the asteroid will reach perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun.

How NASA searches for dangerous asteroids?

According to Space.com, any space object that is within 193 million kilometers of Earth is labeled a near-Earth object by NASA. And any large object within 7.5 million kilometers of our planet is classified as potentially dangerous. When experts detect such objects, they begin studying them closely to spot any signs of deviations from predicted trajectories that could lead to a devastating collision with Earth.

NASA has tracked the locations and orbits of about 28,000 asteroids using the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which consists of four telescopes that perform full scans of the entire night sky every 24 hours. Since ATLAS launched in 2017, it has detected more than 700 near-Earth asteroids and 66 comets.

Two of the asteroids detected by ATLAS, 2019 MO and 2018 LA, did collide with Earth: the first exploded off the southern coast of Puerto Rico and the second near the border of Botswana and South Africa. But since both asteroids were small, they did not cause any damage.

At this point, NASA has already estimated the trajectories of all near-Earth objects through the end of the century. The good news is that no apocalyptic collisions with dangerous asteroids are expected in the next century.

asteroid-earth

However, small asteroids can also cause the Earth quite a few problems, even if they don't lead to an apocalypse like in the movie Don't Look Up.

 For example, in March 2021, a meteor the size of a bowling ball exploded over Vermont. The force of the explosion was equivalent to 200 kilograms of TNT.

In 2013, a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere over the city of Chelyabinsk in central Russia produced an explosion of about 400 to 500 kilotons TNT equivalent - 26 to 33 times the energy released in the Hiroshima explosion. The explosion sent fireballs into and around the city, damaging buildings, shattering windows, and injuring some 1,500 people.

These, of course, are only a few of the cases of asteroid collisions with Earth.

Protection against asteroid impact

If a dangerous asteroid should appear in the future headed toward us, we will need an effective way to protect the Earth, and experts are already looking for that way. For this very purpose, the aircraft of the DART mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos and successfully changed its orbit. If there is a need for this in the future, it will be possible to try to change the trajectory of other asteroids by hitting them with large enough aircrafts.

China is also working on a mission to redirect asteroids: the mission is still in its early stages, and its scientists plan to launch 23 Changcheng-5 rockets on the asteroid Bennu, which between 2175 and 2199 years will fly to a distance of 7.4 million kilometers from the orbit of Earth. The possibility of Bennu's collision with the Earth is insignificant -- only 1 in 2700, however, as the asteroid is rather large (its diameter is equal to the height of the Empire State Building), consequences in case of collision can be catastrophic.

Aennu asteroid

Each of the missiles that China plans to launch at this asteroid weighs 992 tons. According to scientists' calculations published in Icarus, their simultaneous impact on the asteroid would change its course by 9,000 kilometers.


 
 
 
 
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