Astronomy Picture of the Day
Posted By admin On March 6, 2011 @ 8:34 pm In Photo Essays | Comments Disabled
[1]
Asteroids in the Distance
Credit: R. Evans & K. Stapelfeldt (JPL [2]), WFPC2 [3], HST [4], NASA [5]
Explanation: Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust pitter to Earth daily. Larger bits appear initially as a bright meteor [6]. Baseball-sized rocks and ice-balls streak through our atmosphere daily, most evaporating quickly to nothing. Significant threats [7] do exist for rocks near 100 meters in diameter, which strike the Earth [8] roughly every 1000 years. An object this size could cause significant tsunamis were it to strike an ocean, potentially devastating even distant shores. A collision with a massive asteroid [9], over 1 km across, is more rare [10], occurring typically millions of years apart, but could have truly global consequences [11]. Many asteroids remain undiscovered [12]. In fact, one was discovered in 1998 as the long blue streak in the above archival image [13] taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2002 June, the small 100-meter asteroid 2002 MN [14] was discovered only after it whizzed by the Earth, passing [15] well within the orbit of the Moon. 2002 MN [16] passed closer than any asteroid since 1994 XM1 [17], but not as close as 2004 MN4 [18] will pass in 2029. A collision [19] with a large asteroid would not affect Earth’s orbit so much as raise dust [20] that would affect Earth’s climate [21]. One likely result is a global extinction of many species of life, possibly dwarfing the ongoing extinction occurring now [22].
Visit the NASA/JPL website to view more Astronomy Pictures of the Day [23]
Article printed from Recorder Online: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com
URL to article: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/03/06/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-26/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/asteroidstreak_hst_900.jpg
[2] JPL: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
[3] WFPC2: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/wfpc2
[4] HST: http://www.stsci.edu/hst/HST_overview/
[5] NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/
[6] meteor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid#Meteor
[7] Significant threats: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/
[8] strike the Earth: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap990711.html
[9] massive asteroid: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040619.html
[10] is more rare: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980313.html
[11] could have truly global consequences: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/doc/sentry.html
[12] undiscovered: http://spacewatch.lpl.arizona.edu/
[13] above archival image: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1998/10/
[14] 2002 MN: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/3306216.html
[15] passing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WgBWyiLD0I
[16] 2002 MN: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2002mn.html
[17] 1994 XM1: http://astrowww.phys.uvic.ca/media/press/1.htm
[18] 2004 MN4: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news149.html
[19] collision: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050308.html
[20] raise dust: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95tmYmeHf84
[21] affect Earth’s climate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_winter
[22] extinction occurring now: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html
[23] Astronomy Pictures of the Day: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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