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The 10 biggest asteroids that pose a threat to Earth in 2020

<ul class="summary-list"><li>An asteroid the size of a car flew within about 1,830 miles of Earth this weekend — closer than any known <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> rock has ever come without crashing into the planet.</li><li>A NASA-funded program detected the asteroid, called 2020 QG, six hours after its close approach.</li><li>If the asteroid had hit Earth, it probably would have exploded in the atmosphere in an airburst too high up to do any damage on the ground.</li><li>But the near miss highlights a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">major blind spot</a> in Earth's programs to search for dangerous <keyword id="81841" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Asteroids">asteroids</keyword>.</li></ul>A car-size asteroid flew within about 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) of Earth on Sunday.That's a remarkably close shave — the closest ever recorded, in fact, according to asteroid trackers and a <a href="http://www.brera.mi.astro.it/sormano/teca.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">catalog</a> compiled by Sormano Astronomical Observatory in Italy. Because of its size, the space rock most likely wouldn't have posed any danger to people on the ground had it struck our planet. But the close call is worrisome nonetheless, since astronomers had no idea the asteroid existed until after it passed by."The asteroid approached undetected from the direction of the sun," Paul Chodas, the director of <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword>'s Center for Near Earth Object Studies, told Business Insider. "We didn't see it coming."Instead, the Palomar Observatory in California <a href="https://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=2020+QG" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first detected the space rock</a> about six hours after it flew by Earth.Chodas confirmed the record-breaking nature of the event: "Yesterday's close approach is closest on record, if you discount a few known asteroids that have actually impacted our planet," he said.NASA knows about only a fraction of <keyword id="1821718" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="near-Earth-objects">near-Earth objects</keyword> (NEOs) like this one. Many do not cross any telescope's line of sight, and several potentially dangerous asteroids have snuck up on scientists in recent years. If the wrong one slipped through the gaps in our NEO-surveillance systems, it could kill tens of thousands of people. <h2>2020 QG flew over the Southern Hemisphere</h2>This recent near-Earth asteroid was initially called <a href="https://www.projectpluto.com/neocp2/mpecs/ZTF0DxQ.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ZTF0DxQ</a> but is now formally known to astronomers as <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2020%20QG" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2020 QG</a>. Business Insider first learned about it from Tony Dunn, the creator of the website orbitsimulator.com."Newly-discovered asteroid ZTF0DxQ passed less than 1/4 Earth diameter yesterday, making it the closest-known flyby that didn't hit our planet," Dunn <a href="https://twitter.com/tony873004/status/1295390969613840386" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a> on Monday. He shared the animation below, republished here with permission.The sped-up simulation shows the approximate orbital path of 2020 QG as it careened by at a speed of about 7.7 miles per second (12.4 kilometers per second) or about 27,600 mph.Early observations suggest the space rock flew over the Southern Hemisphere just after 4 a.m. Universal Time (midnight ET) on Sunday.The animation above shows 2020 QG flying over the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. However, the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center calculated a slightly different trajectory. The group's <a href="https://minorplanetcenter.net/neo/view?date=2459077.65&amp;label=2020%20QG&amp;packed_desig=K20Q00G=K20Q00G" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rendering</a> (shown at the beginning of this story), suggests the asteroid flew over the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles east of Australia.<h2>Not dangerous, but definitely not welcome</h2>As far as space rocks go, 2020 QG wasn't too dangerous.Telescope observations suggest the object is between 6 feet (2 meters) and 18 feet (5.5 meters) wide — somewhere between the size of a small car and an extended-cab pickup truck. But even if it was on the largest end of that spectrum and made of dense iron (most asteroids are rocky), only small pieces of such an asteroid may have reached the ground, according to the "<a href="https://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Impact Earth</a>" simulator from Purdue University and Imperial College London.Such an asteroid would have exploded in the atmosphere, creating a brilliant fireball and unleashing an airburst equivalent to detonating a couple dozen kilotons of TNT. That's about the same as one of the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan in 1945. But the airburst would have happened about 2 or 3 miles above the ground, so it wouldn't have sounded any louder than heavy traffic to people on the ground.This doesn't make the asteroid's discovery much less unnerving, though — it does not take a huge space rock to create a big problem.<div type="image" title="chelyabinsk asteroid simulation darrel robertson sc15 nasa" height="1013" width="1500" msid="77602990" hostid="261"></div>Take, for example, the roughly 66-foot-wide (20-meter) asteroid that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chelyabinsk-meteor-mystery-3-years-later-2016-2">exploded without warning over Chelyabinsk, Russia</a>, in February 2013. That space rock created a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/no-one-saw-chelyabinsk-meteor-over-russia-coming-could-happen-again-2016-4">superbolide event</a>, unleashing an airburst equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT — about 30 <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nukemap-virtual-reality-nuclear-bomb-explosion-simulator-new-york-city-2019-8">Hiroshima nuclear bombs</a>' worth of energy. The explosion, which began about 12 miles (20 kilometers) above Earth, triggered a blast wave that shattered windows in six Russian cities and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032063317303884" target="_blank" rel="noopener">injured about 1,500 people</a>.And in July 2019, a 427-foot (130-meter) asteroid called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-flies-close-to-earth-surprising-scientists-2019-7">2019 OK passed within 45,000 miles</a> (72,400 kilometers) of our planet, or less than 20% of the distance between <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-moon-distance-edge-of-outer-space-2018-5">Earth and the moon</a>. Astronomers detected that rock less than a week before its closest approach, leading one scientist to tell The Washington Post that the asteroid essentially appeared "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/07/26/it-snuck-up-us-city-killer-asteroid-just-missed-earth-scientists-almost-didnt-detect-it-time/?utm_term=.68769f07439a" target="_blank" rel="noopener">out of nowhere</a>."In an unlikely direct hit to a city, such a wayward space rock <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2017GL073191" target="_blank" rel="noopener">might kill tens of thousands of people</a>.NASA is actively scanning the skies for such threats, as Congress has <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/1281/text" target="_blank" rel="noopener">required</a> it to do since 2005. However, the agency is mandated to detect only 90% of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-detection-mission-neocam-nasa-funding-astronaut-support-2018-11">"city killer" space rocks</a> larger than about 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter.In May 2019, NASA said it had found <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/neoo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">less than half of the estimated 25,000 objects</a> of that size or larger. And of course, that doesn't count smaller rocks such as the Chelyabinsk and 2019 OK asteroids.Objects that come from the direction of the sun, meanwhile — like 2020 QG — are notoriously difficult to spot."There's not much we can do about detecting inbound asteroids coming from the sunward direction, as asteroids are detected using optical <keyword id="62018" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Telescopes">telescopes</keyword> only (like ZTF), and we can only search for them in the night sky," Chodas said. "The idea is that we discover them on one of their prior passages by our planet, and then make predictions years and decades in advance to see whether they have any possibility of impacting."NASA has a plan to address these gaps in its asteroid-hunting program. The agency is in the early stages of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-telescope-to-detect-deadly-asteroids-2019-9">developing a space telescope</a> that could detect asteroids and comets coming from the sun's direction. NASA's 2020 budget allotted nearly $36 million for that telescope, called the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission. If funding continues, it could launch as early as 2025.This story has been updated with new information.

A car-size asteroid flew within 1,830 miles of Earth over the weekend — the closest pass ever — and we didn't see it coming

<ul><li>The Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) predicts that a 4 kilometer wide asteroid is going to fly awfully close to the Earth in 2020. </li><li>The asteroid 1998 OR2 could also get pushed into a collision course directly for Earth because of the Yarkovsky effect and gravitational keyholes. </li><li>The massive asteroid could have devastating effects if it were to fall to Earth. </li></ul>An asteroid that stretches for four kilometers, half the of Mount Everest’s height, could be on a collision for Earth in less than a year. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (<a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?des=1998%20OR2">CNEOS</a>) estimates that the asteroid, dubbed at 1998 OR2, will be around 6.3 million kilometers from the Earth’s core when it passes by on 29 April 2020. But, there’s a chance that it will be much closer — and even on a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/what-is-asteroid-meteorite-and-meteor/articleshow/70654013.cms">direct collision course</a> with Earth — if there’s any nudge to the asteroid’s current trajectory. What can push the asteroid to Earth? There are two main factors in space that can <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/a-city-killer-asteroid-got-scarily-close-to-earth-yesterday-and-astronomers-didnt-know-about-it-until-it-was-just-days-away/articleshow/70404032.cms">affect the orbit</a> of an asteroid — one, the Yarkovsky effect and two, a gravitational keyhole. And, both, could either push the asteroid closer to Earth or, if one is lucky, further away. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/Astronomers-Are-Planning-Dramatic-Ways-To-Stop-An-Asteroid-Collision/articleshow/21343800.cms">Yarkovsky effect</a>, simply put, is when an asteroid gets pushed around by sunlight. The effect of light hitting an asteroid is minute, but as it happens over a longer period of time — it tends to add up. The shorter the wavelength, the more energy it has and thus the bigger the resulting push. When it comes a gravitational keyhole, on the other hand, the change in an asteroid’s orbit is more immediate. But unlike the Yarkovsky effect, where sunlight is all around, gravitational keyholes only occur in tiny regions of space. If the 1998 OR2 were to pass through a gravitational keyhole — any spot in space where the asteroid’s orbit could get affected by the gravity of a nearby planet — it has the potential to push the asteroid into a direct collision course with Earth. The point of concern is that if the asteroid is to hit Earth, there’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-other-scientists-believe-asteroids-will-eventually-hit-earth/articleshow/70644547.cms">very little</a> that anyone can do about it. As of now, most space agencies around the world are still working on their <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/astronaut-says-a-neglected-telescope-is-nasas-best-chance-of-defending-earth-from-city-killer-asteroids-for-gods-sake-fund-it/articleshow/66910270.cms">planetary defense strategies.</a> See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-other-scientists-believe-asteroids-will-eventually-hit-earth/articleshow/70644547.cms">It might not be 'dinosaur destroying' but it's only a matter of time before an asteroid hits Earth</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/what-is-asteroid-meteorite-and-meteor/articleshow/70654013.cms">An asteroid only turns into a meteor if it falls to Earth</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/an-asteroid-was-supposed-to-hit-earth-in-september-but-astronomers-cant-seem-to-find-it/articleshow/70270747.cms">An asteroid was supposed to hit Earth in September — but astronomers can’t seem to find it</a>

An asteroid nearly half the size of Mount Everest might be on a collision course for Earth in less than a year

<ul class="summary-list"><li>An <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> has a slim chance of entering the <keyword id="6359982" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="earth">Earth</keyword>'s atmosphere on November 2.</li><li>That's one day before the US <keyword id="6359191" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="election">election</keyword>.</li><li>Because of its small size, the asteroid, dubbed 2018VP1, would burn off while hurtling toward the planet.</li></ul>An asteroid has a slim chance of entering the Earth's atmosphere on November 2, one day before the US election, according to <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword>.Named 2018VP1, the asteroid is pretty tiny, <a href="https://twitter.com/AsteroidWatch/status/1297576303206576133?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1297576303206576133%7Ctwgr%5E&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.as.com%2Fen%2F2020%2F08%2F24%2Flatest_news%2F1598229102_746126.htmlhtml">according to NASA data</a>.It has only a 0.41% likelihood of entering Earth's atmosphere, but celestial objects that size tend to burn up anyway before reaching the ground, NASA told Business Insider."Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, approximately 6.5 feet, and poses no threat to Earth," a NASA representative told Business Insider. That's about 2 meters long, like a refrigerator. "If it were to enter our planet's atmosphere, it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size."2018VP1 has had a few close encounters with Earth before, dating back to 1970. It most recently visited in November 2018, roughly when it was discovered <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/22/us/asteroid-earth-november-2020-scn-trnd/index.html">at California's Palomar Observatory</a>.It's due back, after a <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2018VP1;old=0;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb">two-year orbit around the sun</a>, to come within 4,800 to 260,000 miles of our atmosphere, <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/">NASA data shows</a>. For reference, the International <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">Space</keyword> Station sits about 254 miles above the planet.The size of asteroids like this one makes them hard to spot until they get close to Earth, but most pass by much farther away than the moon, <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7728">NASA said in a recent release</a>.In fact, one dubbed 2020 QG passed just 1,830 miles above the Indian Ocean last week — the closest such encounter on record — and NASA didn't even see it coming, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/asteroid-2020qg-closest-fly-by-earth-on-record-nasa-astronomers/">it said</a>.In 2005, NASA was <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-search-for-asteroids-to-help-protect-earth-and-understand-our-history/">directed by Congress</a> to discover 90% of potentially dangerous asteroids larger than 459 feet in size by the end of 2020."It's quite an accomplishment to find these tiny close-in asteroids in the first place, because they pass by so fast," said Paul Chodas, the director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California."There's typically only a short window of a couple of days before or after close approach when this small of an asteroid is close enough to Earth to be bright enough but not so close that it moves too fast in the sky to be detected by a telescope," he said.Between the <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> pandemic, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/george-floyd-protests-defining-history-politics-election-black-lives-matter-2020-6">a reckoning with racial justice</a>, sky-high <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/13/cdc-mental-health-pandemic-394832">depression and anxiety</a>, election season, and other recent events, people are joking about the asteroid's perceived embodiment of 2020."It seems like 2020 just won't let up," the Milwaukee-based Fox 6 Now <a href="https://twitter.com/fox6now/status/1297292466521960448">wrote on Twitter</a>.

NASA: A fridge-size asteroid is headed toward Earth one day before the November election

Japan has landed two hopping robots onto asteroid Ryugu as part of the Hayabusa2 mission. It's Japan's second mission to an asteroid, where it plans to return some samples of Ryugu to Earth by the early 2020s. So that scientists can study the samples with more sophisticated instruments and hopefuly uncover some of the biggest scientific mysteries of all. Following is a transcript of the video.On September 21, Japan's space agency made history. It became the first country to land not one, but two rovers onto an asteroid. Already, the unmanned rovers have sent back the first images while on the surface. And no, so far it's looking like there are no alien cities on its surface. But this mission, called Hayabusa2, could ultimately help solve one of the grandest scientific mysteries of all: Where did life on Earth come from?Scientists have been studying asteroids for years. NASA, for example, landed its N.E.A.R Shoemaker spacecraft on asteroid Eros in 2001. But its Japan's space agency that is the first to deploy a pair of rovers to explore an asteroid's surface. Japan launched the Hayabusa2 mission in December, 2014. So, it has already been about 3.5 years in the making.The spacecraft rendezvoused with its target in June 2018. Snapping a series of pictures that revealed the asteroid's shape. The asteroid of choice was 162173 Ryugu, or Ryugu for short. In Japanese it refers to a magical, underwater Dragon Palace. Now, the asteroid flies through space, around the sun ever 16 months. Conveniently between the orbits of Earth and Mars.Making it an ideal target for the mission. Which, if all goes according to plan, will return a sample of the asteroid to Earth by the early 2020s. As the spacecraft flew closer to the asteroid's surface, it prepared to deploy its first two unmanned rovers. But these guys aren't your typical space rover. They're slightly bigger than the size of a large iPhone. Measuring just 7 by 18 centimeters. And they won't be driving around on the asteroid's surface. They'll be hopping.Yup, you heard that right. Hopping. Japan designed the rovers with a spinning cylinder inside that gives it the power to hop about a few meters at a time. This reduces the risk of getting stuck on the rocky, uneven surface. But it doesn't come without it's own risk. Asteroids are relatively small and therefore have a weak gravitational pull. And even by asteroid standards, Ryugu is tiny. It's less than a kilometer across, making it no larger than a few city blocks. So, if the rovers hop too high, they could potentially go flying off into space. But so far, the mission looks good.The rovers have already achieved their first hop. Now, this may be the first time Japan has landed on an asteroid but it won't be the last. These two rovers are just the first of four that Japan aims to land on Ryugu. The other two rovers are scheduled to land within the next year. In the process, Japan hopes to collect and return a sample of Ryugu to Earth. So that scientists can study it in more detail, looking for traces of water and organic material. If it turns out that asteroids like Ryugu contain similar material that we see on Earth it would be strong evidence for the idea that life on Earth first came from an asteroids billions of years ago. But this is a mystery that we can only answer if we study asteroids directly.

You Searched For "2020 asteroid" and got 5 results

The 10 biggest asteroids that pose a threat to Earth in 2020

A car-size asteroid flew within 1,830 miles of Earth over the weekend — the closest pass ever — and we didn't see it coming

Dave Mosher,Morgan McFall-Joh…

An asteroid nearly half the size of Mount Everest might be on a collision course for Earth in less than a year

Prabhjote Gill

NASA: A fridge-size asteroid is headed toward Earth one day before the November election

Blake Dodge

Why Japan is landing hopping robots on an asteroid

Nathaniel Lee,Jessica Orwig

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