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<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dinosaur-fossil-from-day-extinction-asteroid-hit-earth-scientists-claim-2022-4">asteroid that killed</a> most dinosaurs 66 million years ago left behind traces of its own origin.</li><li>Researchers think they know where the Chicxulub impactor came from based on levels of ruthenium.</li></ul><p>A team of researchers think they know the origin of a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chicxulub-asteroid-impact-triggered-underwater-volcanic-eruptions-2018-2">massive space rock</a> that hit Earth and killed off almost all the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.</p><p>Their findings could help NASA in its search for potentially hazardous asteroids that pose a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-extinction-earth-take-10-million-years-recover-2019-4">significant threat</a> to life on Earth.</p><p>Asteroids have different chemical makeups depending on where they formed in our solar system.</p><p>To determine the<strong> </strong>dino-killing<strong> </strong>asteroid's origin, researchers examined the various elements in samples taken from<strong> </strong>several locations dating to the time of the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mass-extinction-earth-take-10-million-years-recover-2019-4">mass extinction</a>.</p><p>In particular, they looked at the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oppenheimer-science-to-understand-physics-atomic-bombs-2023-7">element ruthenium</a>. It's a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/44/ruthenium">rare</a> metal on Earth but is more abundant in asteroids.</p><p>Ruthenium levels can be a good indicator of whether an asteroid "originally formed in the outer solar system or in the inner solar system," Mario Fischer-Gödde, one of the researchers, told Business Insider.</p><p>Fischer-Gödde and his colleagues found that, unlike many other impactors over the last 541 million years, the Chicxulub impactor that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chicxulub-asteroid-strike-cretaceous-paleogene-extinction-2017-11">killed the dinosaurs</a> and up to 75% of all life on Earth formed in the outer — not the inner — solar system.</p><p>However, the impactor likely made its way to the inner solar system in the asteroid belt long before it hurtled toward Earth. That's because in the early days of the solar system, Jupiter migrated and its gravitational influence scattered more distant asteroids closer to the sun in the process, Fischer-Gödde said.</p><h2 id="42437828-e838-4325-833b-b21d3ef96f61">NASA doesn't know where all the dangerous asteroids are</h2><div type="image" title="A stegosaurus skeleton in front of a sign that reads &quot;Apex the Segosaurs&quot;" height="683" width="1024" msid="112576306" hostid="261" sizebytes="48450"></div><p>Despite the rarity of huge asteroid strikes, NASA and other space agencies are racing to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-built-largest-digital-camera-lsst-for-asteroids-dark-matter-2024-4">learn all they can</a> about potentially harmful rocks that could trigger another mass extinction event. Because it only takes one.</p><p>There are still many unknowns about these rocks, including <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">where some of them are</a> and which types may pose the most threat.</p><p>Understanding more about the origin of major asteroid strikes in Earth's past could help NASA know where to look for future risks.</p><p>With the ruthenium findings, "we are a step further in zooming in on the exact object" that created the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chicxulub-asteroid-more-sulfur-rapid-climate-cooling-2017-11">Chicxulub crater</a>, Jan Smit, a professor emeritus at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam who was not involved in the research, told Business Insider via email.</p><h2 id="bbfbaaec-0fb8-4e72-a632-37f1006840ab">An asteroid type that rarely hits Earth did unbelievable damage</h2><div type="image" title="An artist's illustration of a massive asteroid colliding with Earth" height="1414" width="2121" msid="112576307" hostid="261" sizebytes="186530"></div><p>Fischer-Gödde and his colleagues examined samples from five <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-impact-simulation-experts-fear-congress-would-delay-action-2024-6">other impacts</a> that happened in the last 541 million years.</p><p>Their levels of ruthenium showed that most of the objects were S-type asteroids, which are found in the inner solar system.</p><p>Meanwhile, the samples taken from the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, where the Chicxulub impactor hit, suggested that the object was a C-type asteroid, which typically live in the outer solar system.</p><p>Earlier studies <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=d979a6041b8f5d7121d348980127dd645a72bea6c355d8e6bd6ce429583ce309&amp;postID=66be5b0fb9a365362651ba40&amp;postSlug=origins-asteroid-killed-dinosaurs-help-prevent-future-mass-extinction-2024-8&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2F24322">suggested</a> the Chicxulub impactor was a C-type asteroid but this latest ruthenium data adds to the supporting evidence, Smit told BI.</p><p>About 80% of the meteorites that have hit Earth are fragments of S-type asteroids, Fischer-Gödde said.</p><p>It's not clear why S-type impactors are more common, but Fischer-Gödde thinks it might be that C-types tend to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-simulated-asteroid-couldnt-stop-impact-europe-2021-5">break apart more</a> and don't make it through the Earth's atmosphere.</p><p>"So far we cannot really say whether one or the other asteroid type would be more likely to cause a mass extinction event," Fischer-Gödde said in a follow-up email. He said asteroids may have contributed to older mass extinction events, like the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=31f1c3e012df1524f07e36095b624c954adf7b450ab4f9552ae32e03b640b8fe&amp;postID=66be5b0fb9a365362651ba40&amp;postSlug=origins-asteroid-killed-dinosaurs-help-prevent-future-mass-extinction-2024-8&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalgeographic.com%2Fscience%2Farticle%2Fmass-extinction">one</a> during the Late Devonian period. Future research could explain the origins of these asteroid strikes as well.</p><p>However, the devastation from the Chicxulub impactor shows that a C-type can be disastrous for Earth. It was a combination of factors, from its size to where it hit, that led to its widespread destruction.</p><p>"It's a big kind of cosmic coincidence, and we all should be thankful for this because otherwise maybe the planet would look very different nowadays," Fischer-Gödde said.</p><p>The researchers published their findings in the journal <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk4868"><u>Science</u></a>.</p>

Scientists think they've found the origin of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. It could help prevent a future mass extinction on Earth.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>On Thursday and Saturday, two different <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-threat-of-meteor-crashing-into-earth-is-bigger-than-you-think-2019-5">"potentially hazardous" asteroids</a> will fly by Earth.</li><li>The first is as big as a mountain, and the second will be one of the brightest in recent history.</li></ul><p>Two rare <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-visit-psyche-asteroid-worth-more-than-entire-world-economy-2023-10">asteroids</a> will zoom past Earth at close range this week, within just 42 hours of each other.</p><p>Due to their size and trajectory, both of these space rocks are labeled "potentially hazardous." But that doesn't mean they pose an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-driver-asks-nasa-save-earth-from-world-ending-asteroids-2023-3">immediate threat to Earth</a>.</p><p>In fact, both of them will safely fly by at thousands of miles per hour. There's a zero percent chance that either will collide with our planet, according to the European Space Agency.</p><p>Neither of these asteroids will be visible to the naked eye, but you may be able to spot them with a telescope or binoculars, Gianluca Masi, astrophysicist and founder of The Virtual Telescope Project, told Business Insider over email.</p><p>Or, you can watch them via livestreams hosted by The Virtual Telescope Project:</p><ul><li>Use <a target="_blank" href="https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/webtv/">this link</a> to watch Asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 streak past Earth on Thursday, June 27, starting at 4:00 p.m. ET.</li><li>And <a target="_blank" href="https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2024/06/20/potentially-hazardous-asteroid-2024-mk-very-close-encounter-online-observation-29-june-2024/">this link</a> to watch Asteroid 2024 MK fly by on Saturday, June 29, starting at 5:00 p.m. ET.</li></ul><h2 id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">Mountain-sized Asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21</h2><div type="image" title="ESA infographic about Asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 and it's close approach on June 27 2024." height="1080" width="1920" msid="111295552" hostid="261"></div><p>Asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 is one of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/details-from-the-chelyabinsk-meteor-2013-11">largest asteroids</a> to have recently passed near Earth, Masi wrote in a press statement.</p><p>With an estimated diameter of roughly 1.4 miles, this mountain-sized space rock is larger than 99% of all known <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-moon-asteroid-orbiting-sun-alongside-earth-astronomers-discover-2023-6">near-Earth objects</a>, according to the European Space Agency.</p><p id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">Asteroid 2011 UL21 falls into a class of space rocks known as "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-plan-alert-public-world-asteroid-strike-2024-2">planet killers</a>," which are at least 1.2 miles wide. If one crashed into Earth, it would cause damage on a continental scale, and potentially kick up enough dust to trigger significant climactic changes for many years, LiveScience <a target="_blank" href="https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/mountain-size-planet-killer-asteroid-will-make-a-close-approach-to-earth-this-week-and-you-can-watch-it-live">reported</a>.</p><p id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">The Chicxulub asteroid, for example, credited with the dinosaurs' demise was about 6.5 miles across and triggered global warming for an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap8525?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D71187586662918797870423820668119382806%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1719416200">estimated</a> 100,000 years after impact.</p><div type="image" title="An artist's illustration of a massive asteroid colliding with Earth" height="1414" width="2121" msid="111295553" hostid="261"></div><p id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">Luckily, 2011 UL21 won't be coming close enough to cause any concern on Thursday. It'll sneak by Earth at a safe distance of more than 4 million miles, which is 17 times farther than <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-moon-distance-edge-of-outer-space-2018-5">the distance between Earth and the moon</a>, Masi wrote.</p><p id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">But this fly-by is noteworthy because 2011 UL21 will be among the top 10 largest asteroids to pass by Earth at close range in the last 125 years, he added.</p><h2 id="789dcbe3-2c95-457e-9dcd-ad0ac66ffd8e">Newly discovered Asteroid 2024 MK</h2><div type="image" title="ESA infographic about Asteroid 2024 MK and its close approach on June 29, 2024." height="1080" width="1920" msid="111295549" hostid="261"></div><p>Asteroid 2024 MK was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-sent-spaceship-near-dinkinesh-asteroid-discovered-second-baby-one-2023-11">first discovered</a> earlier this month, just 13 days before it will pass by Earth at remarkably close range, according to the European Space Agency.</p><p>It's much smaller than 2011 UL21, with an estimated diameter between 390 and 885 feet. That's roughly the length of one to 2.5 football fields.</p><div type="image" title="Gif map of Asteroid 2024 MK's close approach with Earth" height="669" width="800" msid="111295551" hostid="261"></div><p>But what this asteroid lacks in size, it should make up for in brightness. It will come within 184,000 miles of Earth, which is about 77% of the average distance between the Earth and the moon, Masi wrote.</p><p>It's close proximity will make it one of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amateur-astronomer-video-jupiter-bright-fireball-comet-asteroid-impact-2023-9">brightest objects</a> of its kind observed in recent history, he added.</p>

2 'potentially hazardous' asteroids will streak by Earth this week, one as big as a mountain. You can watch it live.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA conducted a new tabletop simulation of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/potentially-hazardous-asteroids-fly-by-earth-this-week-watch-live-2024-6">discovering a large asteroid headed for Earth</a>.</li><li>Experts feared Congress wouldn't fund a mission to an asteroid with a 72% chance of impacting Earth.</li></ul><p>NASA recently brought together about 100 experts to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-simulated-asteroid-couldnt-stop-impact-europe-2021-5">pretend that an asteroid was heading for Earth</a>.</p><p>The tabletop <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-impact-simulations-difficult-to-stop-2021-5">simulation presented a hypothetical scenario</a> in which cities like Dallas, Washington, DC, and Madrid were at risk of a large asteroid impact.</p><p>"A <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-driver-asks-nasa-save-earth-from-world-ending-asteroids-2023-3">large asteroid impact</a> is potentially the only natural disaster humanity has the technology to predict years in advance and take action to prevent," Lindley Johnson, a NASA planetary defense officer emeritus, said in a press release.</p><p>But it wasn't clear that they could prevent such a catastrophe — even with 14 years to figure it out.</p><p>The simulation revealed that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">technology wasn't the problem</a> that could ultimately doom a city, region, or entire country. It was politics.</p><div type="image" title="Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the Capitol on December 12, 2023." height="1500" width="2000" msid="111347083" hostid="261"></div><p>"I know what I would prefer [to do], but Congress will tell us to wait," one participant said of their asteroid-response plan, in a selection of anonymized comments in NASA's summary of the exercise, published on June 20.</p><p>"The most important item of the morning was the discussion involving the political nature of the decision-making," another participant said.</p><h2 id="fff0e374-634e-421c-bed3-007449857a08">Congress may not move fast enough</h2><p>NASA has conducted nearly a dozen tabletop simulations since 2013. This one happened in May and included participants from the US State Department, FEMA, and the space agencies of Europe, the UK, Japan, and Canada.</p><div type="image" title="large conference room with long desks full of people in suits sitting at laptops and looking at a large presentation screen with a person at a podium presenting" height="900" width="1634" msid="111347084" hostid="261"></div><p>Past exercises showed that, in order to save the world, NASA would need at least <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">five years' notice that an asteroid was headed toward us</a>, maybe even 10 years.</p><p>This time the simulators learned that, even when they had plenty of time, they might not be able to launch their preferred anti-asteroid offensive.</p><p>That's because they didn't think Congress would approve funding for a critical space mission to study the asteroid "unless impact became certain," NASA's summary said.</p><p>A major part of the simulation was figuring out how to impress the "seriousness" of the situation upon Congress and other leadership, Johnson said.</p><p>What's more, the 14-year timeline spanned multiple budget cycles and presidential elections. At any of those junctures, the president, Congress, or NASA's own leadership could change priorities and disrupt the asteroid plan.</p><h2 id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">The most likely incoming asteroid scenario</h2><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">Here are the hypothetical conditions the participants were given in this year's exercise: Scientists have determined a 72% chance of this asteroid impacting Earth in 14 years. It could strike anywhere across a swath of North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">The asteroid's size was unclear. It could be anywhere from 60 to 800 meters (half a mile) wide — possibly big enough to devastate an entire country.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">All that uncertainty made this "a very realistic scenario," Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at MIT who specializes in potentially hazardous asteroids, but did not participate in the simulation, told Business Insider.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">"In fact, it's the most likely type of scenario we will face, where an asteroid is discovered and we have limited information," Binzel said.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">Options for preventing an asteroid impact include shooting the asteroid with lasers, launching a nuclear bomb at it, or simply smacking a space probe into it to nudge it away from Earth.</p><p>NASA has tested one of those options in a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-crashes-dart-spacecraft-into-asteroid-to-test-planetary-defense-2022-9">mission that punched an asteroid</a> and dramatically changed its path in 2022, just to prove the technique could work.</p><div type="image" title="sequence of images showing asteroid from a distance then close up then video cutting out" height="1000" width="2000" msid="111347087" hostid="261"></div><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">In the simulation, experts wanted more information to understand their anti-asteroid options.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">Unfortunately, the fictional space rock was about to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">pass behind the sun and disappear</a> from view for seven months. To avoid wasting precious time, scientists would have to send a spacecraft to the asteroid to learn more about it.</p><p>That's where they feared politics would get in the way. Participants weren't sure Congress would fund the mission unless the asteroid was a certain threat — not a 72% chance of threat.</p><p>So far, NASA has not discovered any large asteroids on track to impact Earth.</p><p>But scientists have identified fewer than 11,000 near-Earth asteroids that are at least 140 meters (460 feet) wide — big enough to crush a city. They believe there are 15,000 of them in our vicinity, meaning more than a quarter of city killers remain undiscovered.</p><h2 id="8dbc0625-4426-4bc0-ba2d-99b4f3dc63a5">NASA could plan a mission just in case</h2><p>Binzel says NASA could get political and bureaucratic barriers out of the way now, before any asteroid threats are identified, by developing a reconnaissance mission to have on standby.</p><p>"It's an adult thing to do that can protect us from becoming surprised," he said.</p><p>The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine made a similar recommendation in its last decadal survey of planetary science priorities.</p><p>In that 2022 <a target="_blank" href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/26522/interactive/">report</a>, the Academies said that NASA should "develop an approach for a rapid-response, flyby" spacecraft to closely study newly-discovered threats. That way, it could launch a reconnaissance mission in less than three years if it became necessary. The Academies also recommended a demonstration to practice reconnaissance on a real asteroid.</p><p>So why isn't NASA working on that right now?</p><p>"It's not in the budget," Binzel said.</p><p>First NASA has to make a proposal for such a mission, with a thumbs up from the White House, and then Congress would have to authorize and fund it.</p><p>"If there's an asteroid out there with our name on it, it's already there," Binzel said. "Fortunately, the chance in the next century or so is incredibly small. But it's not zero."</p>

NASA simulated an incoming asteroid impact, and the biggest roadblock to action was penny pinching

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A giant "city killer" asteroid will safely shoot past Earth today traveling at 41,000 mph.</li><li>Its closest approach to Earth will be 1.77 million miles, over seven times the distance to the moon.</li></ul><p>NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has spotted a giant <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-predicts-exact-date-asteroid-hit-earth-atomic-bomb-bennu-2023-9">"city killer" asteroid</a> flying toward Earth. And this afternoon, it will reach its closest approach to our planet, about 1.77 million miles away.</p><p>For reference, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mind-boggling-nasa-photo-shows-moon-distance-from-earth-2022-10">the moon</a> is about 239,000 miles from Earth, so this asteroid will be 7.4 times as far from Earth as the moon is. </p><p>The speedy space rock is expected to be zipping along at about 41,000 mph and measures roughly 890 feet across, or roughly the size of a US football stadium, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch/next-five-approaches"><u>NASA</u></a>.</p><div type="image" title="View of a football stadium from above." height="2051" width="1461" msid="107369399" hostid="261" sizebytes="513156"></div><p>Experts sometimes call asteroids this size "city killers" because they're capable of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">destroying an entire city</a> if they collide with an inhabited part of Earth.</p><p>Still, this asteroid will be too small and far away to see without a telescope. </p><p>It will be about 10,000 times fainter than the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/type-be-vampire-stars-secret-helper-2023-11">faintest stars</a> visible to the naked eye, Gianluca Masi, an astrophysicist and the scientific director of the Virtual Telescope Project, told Business Insider over email.</p><p>But if you want to catch a glimpse of the asteroid as it whizzes by, you're in luck!</p><p>Masi and his colleagues will be recording the event live starting at 1 p.m. ET today. You can watch the livestream on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CtdiyL86JE&amp;ab_channel=TheVirtualTelescopeProject"><u>YouTube</u></a> or in the video below.</p><p>The livestream will track Asteroid 2008 OS7 as it flies by Earth. Viewers will be able to distinguish it as a tiny dot moving past other fixed tiny dots, aka stars, in the background. The livestream will last about 45 minutes, Masi said.</p><p>VTP has recorded other flybys like this, and it's "something always very fascinating to see," Masi told BI.</p><h2>About Asteroid 2008 OS7</h2><p>Asteroid 2008 OS7 orbits the sun every 962 days. After passing by Earth, it will continue along its oval-shaped path through our solar system.</p><p>Its oblong-shaped orbit means that each time the asteroid approaches Earth, its distance from our planet varies significantly.</p><p>For example, the website <a target="_blank" href="https://www.spacereference.org/asteroid/2008-os7"><u>Space Reference</u></a> estimates that upon its next close approach, in July 2037, it will be about 9.7 million miles from Earth.</p><h2>Potentially hazardous asteroids</h2><p>Asteroid 2008 OS7 is what <a target="_blank" href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/neo_groups.html"><u>NASA calls</u></a> a "potentially hazardous" asteroid because of its size and how close it flies past Earth.</p><p>An asteroid is considered potentially hazardous if it is at least 460 feet in diameter and orbits Earth within a distance of about 4.65 million miles.</p><p>Scientists have identified more than <a target="_blank" href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/totals.html"><u>34,000 near-Earth objects</u></a>. Just over 2,300 have been designated <a target="_blank" href="https://www.space.com/ai-finds-first-potentially-dangerous-asteroid">potentially hazardous</a>.</p><p>But NASA suspects there are many more out there that haven't been discovered. If a giant asteroid were on course to hit Earth, we'd need <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5#:~:text=NASA%20is%20developing%20a%20space%20telescope%20to%20track%20asteroids&amp;text=NASA%20is%20planning%20a%20mission,into%20Earth's%20orbit%20in%202026."><u>five to 10 years of warning</u></a> to destroy or deflect it.</p><p>NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/near-earth-object-surveyor"><u>Near-Earth Object Surveyor mission</u></a>, set to launch in September 2027. It would send an infrared space telescope into Earth's orbit to expand NASA's search for near-Earth objects that could threaten our planet.</p>

A football stadium-sized asteroid will blaze by Earth today. Here's how to watch the potentially hazardous 'city killer' live.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Asteroid Bennu has a slim chance of hitting our planet on September 24, 2182, NASA said.</li><li>It would release as much energy as about 24 nuclear bombs, so NASA is keeping a close eye on it. </li></ul><p>What are you doing on September 24, 2182? You may want to clear your calendar because scientists think an asteroid may hit Earth. </p><p>NASA scientists are keeping a close eye on asteroid Bennu, a 1,610-foot-wide <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-sizes-that-can-damage-cities-states-planet-2018-6">cosmic object</a> that could smash into our planet.</p><p>If Bennu were to hit the Earth, it would slam into the surface at about seven miles per second. It is so big that it could release 1,400 megatons of energy, <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/details.html#?des=101955" target="_blank" rel="noopener">per a NASA calculation</a> — which is at least 24 times as powerful as the nuclear weapon, the Tsar Bomba. </p><p>Thankfully, the chances of this happening are very slim — about 1 in 2,700, <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-spacecraft-provides-insight-into-asteroid-bennus-future-orbit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">per a 2021 study</a>.</p><p>Still, NASA is interested enough in Bennu to launch a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-probe-returning-from-asteroid-with-2-oz-of-asteroid-space-rock-2021-5">seven-year-long mission</a> to study it, which is due to bring back a precious sample from the asteroid in a dramatic landing on Sunday.</p><p>This mission could help us better forecast the future of our cosmic neighbor, but it could also provide unprecedented insight into the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/video-earth-tectonic-plates-billion-years-2021-2">formation of the Earth</a>. </p><h2>Bennu is bigger than the Empire State Building</h2><p>Bennu belongs to a category of asteroids called "city-killers." That means that if it were to hit the Earth — the probability of which is zero until 2,100 and very small after that, per NASA — it would be powerful enough to flatten a large city. </p><div type="image" title="A animated gif shows a model of Bennu next to a picture of the Empire State Building and the Eiffel tower, both of which are about as tall as the asteroid is big." height="359" width="720" msid="103866263" hostid="261"></div><p>The diamond-shaped asteroid is no stranger to Earth's neighborhood. Its long orbit around the sun means it approaches the Earth about every six years.  But it usually keeps a polite distance from us — it's never come closer than about <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=Bennu&amp;view=OPC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3 million miles</a> from Earth.</p><p>As it makes its way around the solar system, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacecraft-asteroid-landing-osiris-rex-2020-10">Bennu's orbit</a> can change, and that's where it gets a little riskier. </p><p>To make its 2182 appointment with the Earth, Bennu will need to pass within a very small window in space — a "<a href="https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4921" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gravitational keyhole</a>" — in 2135. That would shift its orbit perfectly to line up with our planet.</p><p>But there's still a 99.96% chance it will miss us on that date. </p><h2>We need to know more about large Earth-bound asteroids</h2><p>Even though the risk is low, large asteroids near Earth need to be taken seriously. Of the ones we know, most pose <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/did-you-know" target="_blank" rel="noopener">little to no</a> risk to our planet.</p><p>But the concern is that these kinds of objects could be hiding from view, meaning NASA can only spot them moments before they hit.</p><div type="image" title="A animated gif shows Bennu from all sides as it is being rotated around. The diamond-shaped grey asteroid is covered in boulders." height="900" width="900" msid="103866265" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA estimates that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">60% of the city-killer-sized</a> asteroids that could come in proximity to Earth are unknown at this time, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/planet-killer-asteroid-could-threaten-earth-in-a-few-millennia-2022-10">even bigger rocks</a> could be hidden in the light of the sun, a known blindspot for observation from Earth. </p><p>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chelyabinsk-meteor-mystery-3-years-later-2016-2?jwsource=cl">Chelyabinsk incident</a> provided a stark reminder of this fact in 2013 when a house-sized asteroid unexpectedly appeared over the city before exploding, breaking windows, damaging buildings, and injuring more than 1,400 people.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid russia Chelyabinsk" height="3744" width="4992" msid="103866266" hostid="261"></div>That's why NASA has been working to improve its forecasting of so-called Near Earth Objects.<p>Studying an object like Bennu, which is easy to observe and comes close enough to Earth that we can send a mission there, is important for understanding more about these objects. </p><p>NASA's mission to Bennu, a probe called Osiris-Rex that was launched in 2016, could provide more clues about how asteroids sail in the cosmos. For instance, one of the mission's objectives is to understand how the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/did-you-know" target="_blank" rel="noopener">light from the sun,</a> as it is absorbed and re-radiated, could affect Bennu's orbit.</p><h2>Bennu could shed light on our planet's birth</h2><p>There's more to Bennu than its destructive potential, and that's what NASA is most interested in for Osiris-Rex.</p><p>Bennu was likely created at about the same time as our planet, about 4.5 billion years ago, <a href="https://beta.science.nasa.gov/mission/osiris-rex/osiris-rex-faq/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA said</a>.</p><p>Traces of what happened at that time have long been erased from our planet, under millions of years of erosion. But Bennu could still be carrying elements from then, frozen in time as it sails through the cosmos, per NASA.</p><p>That's why NASA is eagerly awaiting the return of its Osiris-Rex spacecraft, which is carrying a few ounces of precious dust collected from Bennu in 2020.</p><div type="image" title="OSIRIS REx collection" height="1312" width="1749" msid="103866269" hostid="261"></div><p>This little probe, which has been sailing back from Bennu since May 10, 2021, should deliver its payload, a capsule containing the precious sample, as it passes about 63,000 miles from the Earth in the early hours of Sunday morning. </p><p>The capsule is planned to fall back to Earth later Sunday morning, landing in Utah around 10:55 a.m. ET. </p>

NASA scientists calculated the exact date an asteroid could hit Earth with the force of at least 24 nuclear bombs. Thankfully, it's a long way off.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA works with a worldwide coalition of astronomers to find and track dangerous asteroids.</li><li>In the event of an impending hazardous asteroid strike, NASA already has its plan in place to alert the public.</li></ul><p>When the Chicxulub impactor, a six-mile-wide asteroid, struck Earth 66 million years ago, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dinosaurs-going-extinct-before-asteroid-hit-earth-study-2021-6">dinosaurs had no warning</a>. </p><p>If an asteroid that size hit Earth today, a shock wave two million times more powerful than a hydrogen bomb would flatten forests and trigger tsunamis. A seismic pulse equal to a magnitude 10 earthquake would crumble cities. And long after the impact, a cloud of hot dust, ash, and steam would blot out the sun, plunging the Earth into freezing cold. </p><div type="image" title="An artists depiction of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs" height="1449" width="2070" msid="107779797" hostid="261" sizebytes="373936"></div><p>But at least we'd probably know it was coming ahead of time. And if NASA has anything to say about it, we may even be able to prevent the apocalypse. </p><p>NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office is tasked with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-nasa-shouldnt-waste-time-moon-polls-say-2023-8">finding, tracking, and assessing the risk</a> associated with potentially hazardous asteroids in our solar system.</p><p>“We definitely want to find all those before they find us,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nasa.gov/people/lindley-johnson/"><u>Lindley Johnson</u></a>, Lead Program Executive for the Planetary Defense Coordination Office.</p><p>To do that, NASA works with a global coalition of astronomers called the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN). </p><p>Here’s what they would do if an apocalyptic asteroid strike was headed toward Earth. </p><h2>An international warning system </h2><p>In the event that a dangerous asteroid is headed toward Earth, IAWN has procedures in place to notify the public. </p><p>First, the party members who detected the threat would share their observations across the IAWN network to verify their findings and assess the danger.</p><p>Once all parties agree that Earth should brace for impact, NASA would send out an alert.</p><p>“I don’t have a red phone on my desk or anything,” Johnson said. “But we do have formal procedures by which notification of a serious impact would be provided.”</p><p>If the asteroid was headed toward the US, NASA would notify the White House, and the government would release a formal statement to the public. If it was big enough to pose an international threat, IAWN would notify the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs.</p><h2>Hunting for asteroids </h2><p>An asteroid is considered “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-warns-asteroid-skyscraper-football-stadium-size-pass-earth-watch-2024-2">potentially hazardous</a>” if it is larger than roughly 460 feet across and intersects Earth’s orbit at a minimum distance of 0.5 astronomical units, which is half the distance between Earth and the sun. </p><p>There are about 2,300 known potentially hazardous asteroids out there, and roughly 153 of them are larger than 0.6 miles across. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-sizes-that-can-damage-cities-states-planet-2018-6">That’s big enough to trigger a catastrophe if one struck Earth.</a></p><p>To find and track them, NASA and the other IAWN partners look for new asteroids in addition to tracking ones that have already been discovered. All their observations get compiled into a database at the Minor Planet Center.</p><p>So far, IAWN has found over 34,000 near-Earth asteroids. With enough observational data, NASA can confidently predict their orbits at least a century into the future, Johnson said.</p><p>There’s a slim chance that the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-predicts-exact-date-asteroid-hit-earth-atomic-bomb-bennu-2023-9"><u>potentially hazardous Bennu asteroid</u></a> could hit Earth in 159 years, triggering an explosion equal to 24 nuclear bombs. But the odds of that happening are only about one in 2,700, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-spacecraft-provides-insight-into-asteroid-bennus-future-orbit"><u>according to a 2021 study</u></a>.</p><p>If Bennu does head toward Earth, NASA has a few tricks up its sleeve to defend our planet.</p><h2>Defending Earth</h2><p>Most of the time, IAWN catches oncoming asteroids long before they become an immediate threat to Earth, according to Johnson. But NASA would need at least five to 10 years of advanced notice to prevent the apocalypse from an approaching asteroid. </p><p>In 2021, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-crashes-dart-spacecraft-into-asteroid-to-test-planetary-defense-2022-9">NASA launched its first planetary defense test mission</a>. It rammed an uncrewed spacecraft into an asteroid to shift its orbit away from Earth.</p><div type="image" title="An illustration of a spacecraft flying in front of an asteroid" height="1376" width="2180" msid="107779800" hostid="261" sizebytes="184652"></div><p>The mission was a success, and NASA <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-driver-asks-nasa-save-earth-from-world-ending-asteroids-2023-3">plans to test more deflection techniques</a> in the future. A developing “gravity tractor” technique would send a spacecraft to stay in position next to the asteroid and allow the gravitational interaction to pull the asteroid out of its orbit. NASA is also working on a technique that uses an ion beam to shift an asteroid's course.</p><p>But if the threat was coming in less than five years, NASA wouldn’t have time to deflect the asteroid. Then, it might resort to destruction to minimize and disperse the impact.</p><p>If NASA only had a few months of warning, then <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5"><u>there’s not much it could do to save Earth</u></a>.</p><p>Thankfully, IAWN’s strategy is to find asteroids decades, if not centuries, before the impact. </p><p>“That gives us plenty of time to then try to do something about them while they’re still in space, so that we completely avoid any catastrophe here on Earth,” Johnson said.</p>

NASA explains how it would alert the public of an apocalyptic asteroid strike 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists have uncovered traces of what they think could be the world's largest asteroid impact. </li><li>The structure, hidden in the ground in Australia, is thought to be about 300 miles across.</li></ul><p>The world's largest <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-oldest-meteor-crater-australia-2020-1">asteroid impact</a>, 300 miles across, could be hidden in the Australian ground. </p><p>Scientists have been tracing "magnetic" and "gravity" patterns spreading out in circles from a point about 10 miles from Deniliquin in New South Wales, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meteor-australia-stardust-older-than-sun-2020-1">Australia</a>. </p><p>The structure, the scientists say, could be the remnants of an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-sizes-that-can-damage-cities-states-planet-2018-6">enormous asteroid impact</a> that hit the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. </p><p>If confirmed, it would be the largest asteroid impact on record. </p><h2>The memory of the impact is hidden in the ground</h2><p>One would think finding the world's largest asteroid impact should be fairly easy. But the reality is very different. </p><p>It is true that asteroid impacts <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-evidence-suggests-the-worlds-largest-known-asteroid-impact-structure-is-buried-deep-in-southeast-australia-209593">create massive geological structures</a>.</p><p>The force of the impact is so strong it can bend the Earth's crust, creating ripples similar to those a rock makes when hitting a pond, Andrew Glickson, a paleo-geophysicist from the Australian Geological Survey Organization, said in a post in The Conversation August 10. </p><p>But if this impact happened, hundreds of millions of years of erosions would have erased most of the visible features of the event. </p><p>Still, scientists can look for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-struck-perfect-angle-to-doom-dinosaurs-study-2020-5">telltale signs</a> left behind, with a little patience, Glickson said.</p><p>Five years of ground surveys around the area of Deniquilin have uncovered "radial faults," circular fractures that radiate from a central structure, Glickson and his colleague Tony Yeates said in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040195122002487?via%3Dihub">a peer-reviewed paper</a> published last year.</p><p>These are accompanied by "small magnetic anomalies" around the center point. These were likely caused by molten rock oozing into the peaks and troughs left behind by the impact. </p><p>Glickson said this so-called Deniliquin structure "spans up to 520 kilometers in diameter" or about 300 miles.</p><p>That would be an impact bigger than any other documented on Earth. That includes the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-deepest-gold-mine-is-in-south-africa-2016-12?">Vredefort impact</a> structure in South Africa, which is thought to have been between 100 and 200 miles wide, and the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chicxulub-asteroid-impact-triggered-underwater-volcanic-eruptions-2018-2">Chicxulub impact</a>, about 90 miles across, which scientists believed triggered the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. </p><p>To confirm the finding, the scientists will aim to get physical evidence from the site itself. </p><p>"For proof of impact, we'll need to collect physical evidence of shock, which can only come from drilling deep into the structure," said Glickson in the post. </p><h2>The asteroid may have caused one of Earth's mass extinctions</h2><p>Before the scientists can drill into the site, it will be difficult to know when exactly this asteroid would have hit.</p><p>Glickson believes the impact happened when Australia was still part of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-continents-crystals-plate-tectonics-2017-1">Gondwana,</a> a supercontinent that broke off from Pangea and later turned into South America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica.</p><p>That would mean it would be at least 180 million years old, probably more. </p><p>"Specifically, I think it may have triggered what's called the Hirnantian glaciation stage, which lasted between 445.2 and 443.8 million years ago," Glickson said in the post. </p><p>This <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-of-6th-mass-extinction-2019-3">mass extinction event</a> was caused by an ice age that wiped out <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825209001652">85% of the planet's species</a>, 350 million years before the dinosaurs were wiped out, Glickson said. </p><p>But the impact could be even older. Glickson said he could see it date back up to 514 million years. </p>

A mystery 300-mile wide formation lurking beneath Australia may be the largest asteroid impact crater on Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/adam-driver-did-not-go-house-of-gucci-wrap-party-2022-1">Adam Driver</a> asked NASA how it would save Earth from an incoming asteroid.</li><li>No <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">city-killer asteroids</a> are known to be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/planet-killer-asteroid-could-threaten-earth-in-a-few-millennia-2022-10">a threat to Earth</a>, but NASA hasn't catalogued all of them.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/adam-driver-said-son-hates-movies-wont-watch-new-film-2023-3">Adam Driver</a> sat down with NASA to talk about avoiding an asteroid apocalypse.</p><p>The actor is launching a new film, called "65," where he plays a space pilot who crash-lands on Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago, then discovers the approach of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dinosaur-fossil-from-day-extinction-asteroid-hit-earth-scientists-claim-2022-4">the asteroid which drove dinosaurs' extinction</a>.</p><p>"What if we found out that an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-nasa-dart-impacted-looks-like-comet-hubble-photo-reveals-2022-10">asteroid</a> like this were going to hit our planet today?" Driver asked in a video NASA posted last week.</p><p>Don't worry about such a large asteroid — an extinction-level space rock — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-heading-earth-bright-outshine-stars-scientists-c-2023-a32023-3">approaching Earth</a> anytime soon, NASA astronomer Kelly Fast was quick to clarify.</p><p>"Those large ones, most of them have been found. They're easier to spot. There are fewer of them," Fast, who manages NASA's near-Earth object observations, said in the video. "But there are asteroids still left to be found that aren't <em>that</em> large, but still are of a size that could do damage should they impact."</p><p>Specifically, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">NASA is on the hunt for asteroids</a> larger than 140 meters (460 feet) wide. Those are big enough to flatten a city. Congress had mandated that NASA identify and track 90% of those city-killers, to ensure their orbits aren't taking them on a collision course with Earth.</p><p>"If an asteroid were discovered that were going to impact Earth, NASA's role would be to inform planning, to give information about the asteroid, about where the impact would happen, about what the effects might be," Fast said.</p><p>The agency also has the ability to intervene and push such an asteroid away from our planet. Three NASA missions are filling the planetary-defense toolbelt.</p><h2>NASA can slam an asteroid with a spacecraft — and it already did</h2><div type="image" title="sequence of images showing asteroid from a distance then close up then video cutting out" height="1000" width="2000" msid="98951923" hostid="261" sizebytes="58056"></div><p>Driver's next question was about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-crashes-dart-spacecraft-into-asteroid-to-test-planetary-defense-2022-9">NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid</a> called Dimorphos last year, to see if that push could change its orbit around a larger asteroid.</p><p>It was a test of NASA's simplest option for a deadly asteroid: With enough years' notice, a probe could give the space rock enough of a nudge to change its orbit around the sun and take it off its collision course with Earth.</p><div type="image" title="LICIACube image showing the aftermath of the DART impact." height="1080" width="1080" msid="98951925" hostid="261" sizebytes="12896"></div><p>"Would that work? Could that be an effective, uh, means of saving the planet from an asteroid?" Driver asked.</p><p>It worked when DART did it. The spacecraft's impact altered Dimorphos's orbit by 33 minutes, pushing it closer to its parent asteroid.</p><div type="image" title="Infographic showing the effect of DART spacecraft impact on the orbit of asteroid Dimorphos" height="1520" width="2600" msid="98951926" hostid="261" sizebytes="109614"></div><p>Other options that scientists have pitched include shooting the asteroid with lasers, or launching a nuclear bomb at it. NASA hasn't tried either of those approaches.</p><p>"DART showed that we do have technology for diverting an asteroid in space, but there is still a lot left to be done," Fast said.</p><h2>NASA is studying and tracking down near-Earth asteroids</h2><p>Fast added that NASA's approach to any asteroid would depend on the asteroid's size and composition.</p><p>Another NASA mission, called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">Osiris-Rex, landed on the surface of an asteroid</a> in 2020 and scooped up its rocky space dust.</p><div type="image" title="osiris rex side by side skitch" height="1500" width="2000" msid="98951927" hostid="261" sizebytes="178566"></div><p>Those samples are set to return to Earth later this year, and they'll help scientists understand the composition of space rocks, and inform future study of any hazardous asteroids that may be discovered.</p><p>The third leg of NASA's asteroid-defense plan is a mission that Driver didn't ask about. It's a space telescope specifically designed for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">tracking down city-killer asteroids</a>. It's called the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, or NEO Surveyor.</p><p>That mission would help NASA fulfill its Congressional mandate to catalogue those asteroids. That's crucial, because <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">NASA has to discover any incoming asteroid years before it impacts Earth</a>, so the agency has enough time to study it and make a plan.</p><div type="image" title="neocam asteroid hunter spacecraft discovery nasa jpl caltech" height="1476" width="1968" msid="98951928" hostid="261" sizebytes="169106"></div><p>The infrared telescope NEO Surveyor is currently in development, planned for launch in 2026.</p><p>Even though Driver and Fast didn't discuss that mission, the actor seemed impressed with NASA's efforts.</p><p>"Thank you for your work in keeping the planet safe from world-ending asteroids plummeting into our planet," Driver said.</p>

Adam Driver asked NASA how it plans to save Earth from world-ending asteroids

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NOAA has forecasted a "severe" geomagnetic storm to hit Earth this Friday, triggering aurora borealis.</li><li>This storm comes as we approach solar maximum: the peak of solar activity during the sun's 11-year cycle.</li></ul><p>A cluster of giant sunspots called region 3664 has been <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sunspot-seven-times-size-earth-bring-aurora-to-us-states-2024-5">shooting out powerful eruptions</a>, called coronal mass ejections, over the last several days.</p><p>Right now, at least five of them are on a direct collision course with Earth, shooting through space at 560 miles per second. As a result, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare forecast for a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/severe-g4-solar-storm-heading-toward-earth-heres-what-to-know-2024-5">"severe" G4 geomagnetic storm</a> to hit Earth this Friday.</p><p>It's the first G4 forecast NOAA has issued since 2005. But severe geomagnetic storms like this could become more common in the coming months as we approach what's called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/northern-lights-appear-texas-utah-south-dakota-after-double-solar-eruption-2023-11">solar maximum</a>: the peak of solar activity during the sun's 11-year cycle.</p><p>"That means that there'll be a lot <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sunspots-15-times-size-of-earth-solar-storm-into-view-2023-11">more sunspots</a>, and the sunspots will be much larger," Alex Young, the associate director for science at NASA Goddard's Heliophysics Science Division, told Business Insider.</p><h2 id="afdff802-0a6f-43e4-9efc-a835eca43715">What is solar maximum?</h2><div type="image" title="coronal mass ejection sun" height="1350" width="1350" msid="110020275" hostid="261"></div><p id="11b877fe-c85f-4645-9eff-956899a54c5d">Roughly every 11 years or so, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-parker-solar-probe-winds-flip-suns-magnetic-field-2019-12">the sun's magnetic field flips</a>: its north and south poles swap places.</p><p id="11b877fe-c85f-4645-9eff-956899a54c5d">Over the course of this 11-year cycle, the sun's activity — which is governed by its magnetic field — fluctuates.</p><p id="11b877fe-c85f-4645-9eff-956899a54c5d"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/next-solar-maximum-2025-what-expect-cycle-2023-4">The last time the sun's poles flipped</a> and the sun reached solar maximum was in 2013.</p><p id="11b877fe-c85f-4645-9eff-956899a54c5d">That means we're due for the next round of heightened solar activity. "We are just now reaching the peak," Young said.</p><div type="image" title="sunspot" height="503" width="670" msid="110020276" hostid="261"></div><p id="11b877fe-c85f-4645-9eff-956899a54c5d">During solar maximum, the sun develops more and larger sunspots, like the ones in region 3664, compared to quieter periods of solar activity.</p><p id="11b877fe-c85f-4645-9eff-956899a54c5d">"They come in little spurts," Young said. "And those <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sunspots-15-times-size-of-earth-solar-storm-into-view-2023-11">spurts of sunspots</a> will get closer and closer together, and the sunspots that appear will be typically larger, more complicated, and will produce more solar activity," which can generate severe geomagnetic storms.</p><h2 id="e3e0c067-a003-47a4-87c5-10271c0f6db4">What does this mean for Earth?</h2><div type="image" title="Green aurora borealis appears in the sky on January 6, 2017, trees and snow in the foreground, along the George Parks highway about 15 miles west of Fairbanks, Alaska." height="2000" width="3000" msid="110020277" hostid="261"></div><p id="e3e0c067-a003-47a4-87c5-10271c0f6db4">More and larger sunspots mean the sun is more prone to release powerful eruptions called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-probe-flew-through-sun-explosion-clue-solar-storms-cme-2024-4">coronal mass ejections</a>, like the ones headed for Earth right now.</p><p id="e3e0c067-a003-47a4-87c5-10271c0f6db4">Severe geomagnetic storms like the one forecasted to hit this Friday are rare. But entering solar maximum means we could see more of them this year.</p><p id="e3e0c067-a003-47a4-87c5-10271c0f6db4">The good news is that we'll likely have more chances to see dazzling auroras in the Northern Hemisphere this year. The bad news is that these storms could mess with satellites and the power grid.</p><p id="e3e0c067-a003-47a4-87c5-10271c0f6db4">We could experience more <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rare-solar-storm-blast-power-grids-chance-higher-next-years-2023-8">power outages, communication blackouts, and GPS disruptions</a>.</p><p id="e3e0c067-a003-47a4-87c5-10271c0f6db4">In the event that a geomagnetic storm does trigger a power outage where you live, make sure to keep your refrigerator closed, unplug your appliances, and contact local officials about heating and cooling locations. To prepare for a GPS outage, make sure you have printed or written copies of directions to important locations like hospitals.</p>

You Searched For "chances of asteroid hitting earth" and got 9 results

Scientists think they've found the origin of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. It could help prevent a future mass extinction on Earth.

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2 'potentially hazardous' asteroids will streak by Earth this week, one as big as a mountain. You can watch it live.

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NASA simulated an incoming asteroid impact, and the biggest roadblock to action was penny pinching

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A football stadium-sized asteroid will blaze by Earth today. Here's how to watch the potentially hazardous 'city killer' live.

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NASA scientists calculated the exact date an asteroid could hit Earth with the force of at least 24 nuclear bombs. Thankfully, it's a long way off.

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NASA explains how it would alert the public of an apocalyptic asteroid strike

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A mystery 300-mile wide formation lurking beneath Australia may be the largest asteroid impact crater on Earth

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Adam Driver asked NASA how it plans to save Earth from world-ending asteroids

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Earth is bracing for a 'severe' geomagnetic storm and it probably won't be the last for this year

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