Astronomers Losing Track of 900 Asteroids Possibly Heading Towards Earth Sounds Like Bad News
Astronomers have lost track of nearly 900 near-Earth asteroids. These space rocks, which orbit uncomfortably close to our planet, were spotted just once by scientists. Researchers were unable to continue tracking them, which means they have no way of knowing if they are on a collision course with Earth.
Despite fears they could smash into Earth, experts say there is a ‘low chance’ of of surprise near-Earth asteroids causing damage.
Near Earth asteroids (NEAs) are space rocks that come within 30 million miles (48 million km) of Earth’s orbit. So far, astronomers have spotted more than 8,000 near-Earth asteroids that are at least 460 feet (140 meters) wide. This is large enough to wipe out an entire city. Between 2013 and 2016, 17,030 NEAs were listed by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Of these, 11 per cent – nearly 1,900 – were labelled ‘initially unconfirmed’, meaning they were observed a few times but not enough to pin down their orbit. In a new study, researchers at the Minor Planet Centre combed through the data to find out why astronomers lost track of so many of the objects. They discovered that astronomers were often too slow to track their orbits.
I’m not a scientist nor an astronomer by any means, but I think I’m capable of spotting some bad news when I see it. Astronomers, who are paid to monitor when an asteroid is on track to hit us, losing NINE HUNDRED asteroids that could destroy major cities on Earth is bad news bears. Baseball players are paid to hit baseballs, teachers are paid to teach kids, astronomers are paid to monitor the sky and figure when we need to send Bruce Willis up there to save the day. The fact that we can just lose 900 giant space rocks that are described as “Near-Earth Asteroids,” or NEAs, is alarming.
Researchers were unable to continue tracking them, which means they have no way of knowing if they are on a collision course with Earth.
So these giant space rocks can just pop up out of nowhere hypothetically and out of the blue immediately threaten all life on Earth? That kinda sucks, but I guess I want to see what the world would turn into if we all found we had like three weeks to live, and there was nothing we could do about it. Although NASA claims there’s a low chance any of these bad boys will hit us (even thought they have NO CLUE where they currently are) I’m willing to bet we’re headed down this road. I can’t wait.
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I do always wonder what would actually happen if we had some time to prepare for a major asteroid’s impact, like in Armageddon. Would we actually send drillers up to it and blow it up from the inside? That seems like a fool proof plan if you ask me. Unfortunately for the pro-life people, Trump seems like the guy who would just send up a billion nukes and try to blow it out of the sky. He would ignore all the science and go with Trump Science. which would likely doom us all. The blogs that would come from his daily quotes about how he thinks he’s right would almost be worth dying for.