Asteroid Misses Earth
An asteroid about the size of one that blasted Siberia a century ago just buzzed by Earth.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported that the asteroid zoomed past Monday morning.
The asteroid named 2009 DD45 was about 48,800 miles from Earth. That is just twice the height of some telecommunications satellites and about a fifth of the distance to the Moon.
The space ball measured between 69 feet and 154 feet in diameter. The Planetary Society said that made it the same size as an asteroid that exploded over Siberia in 1908 and leveled more than 800 square miles of forest.
Most people didn’t notice the cosmic close call. The asteroid was only spotted two days ago and at its closest point passed over the Pacific Ocean near Tahiti.
Possibility of what could happen can be seen on Videos here : http://www.uoggled.com/?p=502 videos here
So what would happen in case of a collision? Do we have things in place for this type of event?
Scientist say a collision with a large asteroid 1km in diameter could kill a quarter of the world’s population. Statistically, every 100 million years a 10km-wide object hits the Earth in an impact like one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Astronomers are comparing asteroid 2009 DD45 to the rock that caused the Tunguska impact of 1908. The 1908 impact occurred in Siberia near the Tunguska River and destroyed the taiga forest at a distance of twenty five kilometers around the epicenter. The Tunguska impact, which
Asteroid 2009 DD45 Misses Earth was technically an air burst explosion rather than a ground collision, had the force of a multi-megaton nuclear blast. Had asteroid 2009 DD45 hit a populated area, such as a large city, it would have laid it waste. Had asteroid 2009 DD45 hit the ocean it would have caused a tsunami that would have devastated coastlines.
Astronomers suggest that asteroid 2009 DD45 is now in a solar orbit that intersects the Earth’s orbit. That means that asteroid 2009 DD45 will be visiting the vicinity of Earth again.
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