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<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><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.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>."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.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."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 that large, but still are of a size that could do damage should they impact."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."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.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.<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>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.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.<div type="image" title="LICIACube image showing the aftermath of the DART impact." height="1080" width="1080" msid="98951925" hostid="261" sizebytes="12896"></div>"Would that work? Could that be an effective, uh, means of saving the planet from an asteroid?" Driver asked.It worked when DART did it. The spacecraft's impact altered Dimorphos's orbit by 33 minutes, pushing it closer to its parent asteroid.<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>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."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.<h2>NASA is studying and tracking down near-Earth asteroids</h2>Fast added that NASA's approach to any asteroid would depend on the asteroid's size and composition.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.<div type="image" title="osiris rex side by side skitch" height="1500" width="2000" msid="98951927" hostid="261" sizebytes="178566"></div>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.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.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.<div type="image" title="neocam asteroid hunter spacecraft discovery nasa jpl caltech" height="1476" width="1968" msid="98951928" hostid="261" sizebytes="169106"></div>The infrared telescope NEO Surveyor is currently in development, planned for launch in 2026.Even though Driver and Fast didn't discuss that mission, the actor seemed impressed with NASA's efforts."Thank you for your work in keeping the planet safe from world-ending asteroids plummeting into our planet," Driver said.

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

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA is set to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid Monday as part of its <a href="https://www.insider.com/nasa-dart-crash-spacecraft-asteroid-change-its-course-planetary-defense-2021-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Double Asteroid Redirection Test</a>.</li><li>The first-of-it-kind mission is testing NASA's ability to deflect incoming space rocks.</li></ul>Right now, a golf cart-sized spacecraft is hurtling toward a tiny asteroid at about 14,000 miles per hour. On Monday evening, it'll reach its target: a puny space rock.The spacecraft will slam into the asteroid purpose. It's a test of NASA's ability to deflect dangerous asteroids off a collision course with Earth — should the need arise.NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-launches-dart-probe-into-collision-course-with-asteroid-2021-11">launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9</a> in November 2021, with the aim of nudging a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-mining-company-earth-startups-raw-materials-cobalt-gold-platinum-2021-3">space rock</a> into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion asteroid. The $308 million spacecraft traveled 6.8 million miles from Earth to Dimorphos, a small asteroid orbiting the asteroid Didymos.A livestream of images captured by the spacecraft will be available on <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA's website</a> beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET. The impact is expected to occur around 7:14 p.m. ET."I'm highly confident that we are going to hit on Monday and that there will be a complete success," Lindley Johnson, NASA's first planetary defense officer, told reporters at a press conference on Thursday.Four hours before impact, DART will switch into autonomous mode, steering itself toward its target. If all goes according to plan, the 1,376-pound spacecraft will collide with Dimorphos, altering its orbit around Didymos ever so slightly. Scientists expect the collision to change the speed of Dimorphos by a fraction of 1%.(The <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasas-first-planetary-defense-mission-target-gets-a-new-name/">asteroid's name, Dimorphos</a>, is Greek for "having two forms" and was chosen because the asteroid will have one form before DART crashes into it, and another form after.)"We're moving an asteroid. We are changing the motion of a natural celestial body in space. Humanity has never done that before," Tom Statler, NASA's DART program scientist, told reporters on Thursday. "This is stuff of science fiction books and really corny episodes of 'Star Trek' from when I was a kid, and now it's real."Dimorphos is around 525 feet in diameter, and it orbits another, larger asteroid — the 2,650-foot-wide Didymos.<div type="image" title="This image of the light from asteroid Didymos and its orbiting moonlet Dimorphos is a composite of 243 images taken by the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) on July 27, 2022." height="1080" width="1920" msid="94501314" hostid="261"></div>According to Elena Adams, a DART mission systems engineer, the team will know DART successfully smashed into Dimorphos when they lose the spacecraft's signal. "We'll all celebrate," Adams told reporters on Thursday.The asteroid system poses no threat to Earth, according to NASA, making it the perfect target to test our ability to slam into asteroids, in order to change their orbit, and move them out of Earth's way. NASA currently knows the location and orbit of roughly <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-next-generation-asteroid-impact-monitoring-system-goes-online">28,000 nearby asteroids</a>. To be clear, scientists have found no asteroid that poses an immediate threat to human civilization. But experts say that it's a matter of when — not if — Earth finds itself on track to be hit by one.<div type="image" title="An animation looking from behind as NASA's first planetary defense test mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), collides with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos." height="338" width="600" msid="94501315" hostid="261"></div><h1>NASA plans to film the collision</h1>While the spacecraft will not survive the encounter, its single science instrument — the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) — will be switched on for the death dive, taking one image per second to document the impact and aftermath."We are excited for what DRACO will reveal about Didymos and Dimorphos in the hours and minutes leading up to impact," Carolyn Ernst, DRACO instrument scientist at APL, said in a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/dart-tests-autonomous-navigation-system-using-jupiter-and-europa/">press release</a>.About three minutes or so after the collision, a shoebox-sized CubeSat developed by the Italian Space Agency, the LICIACube, will be taking high-resolution images of the event. On September 11, the CubeSat left the spacecraft and is now at a safe distance of about 34 miles from the surface of Dimorphos. The imagery captured by the small satellite will be streamed back to Earth in the weeks following the collision.<div type="image" title="Infographic showing the effect of DART's impact on the orbit of Dimorphos." height="1824" width="3120" msid="94501319" hostid="261"></div>"Even after DART is gone, images traveling through space will continue to come back for about eight seconds," Ed Reynolds, DART's project manager, told reporters on Thursday. <h1>What's next after DART's deliberate crash</h1>Once DART has been destroyed during the collision, follow-up observations with ground- and space-based telescopes will evaluate the asteroid system to see how much its orbit changed. The mission's data will provide astronomers with important information about how well spacecraft could protect Earth from an incoming asteroid, and inform any adjustments that need to be made to the probe.Two years after DART's collision with Dimorphos, the European Space Agency will launch a mission called Hera to study Didymos and Dimorphos in depth. By observing the deformations caused by the impact, the spacecraft aims to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos' composition and formation.This story has been updated with new information. It was originally published on September 23, 2022.

NASA is intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid on Monday. Here's how to watch the collision live.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-hubble-portraits-jupiter-saturn-uranus-neptune-changing-weather-colors-2021-11">NASA</a> launched a spacecraft early Wednesday on a journey to slam into a stadium-size <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-hit-ancient-middle-eastern-city-inspired-sodom-bible-story-2021-9">asteroid</a>.</li><li>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-nasa-launch-asteroid-crashing-spacecraft-dart-2021-11">Double Asteroid Redirection Test</a> seeks to nudge the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">space rock</a> into a new orbit.</li></ul>A <keyword id="11908743" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="spacex" source="Orion">SpaceX</keyword> <keyword id="12067647" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="falcon-9" source="Orion">Falcon 9</keyword> rocket roared to life and soared through the dark California skies early Wednesday, carrying a small probe that could teach <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> how to save Earth from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">dangerous asteroids</a>.NASA isn't aware of any <keyword id="12253294" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroids" source="Orion">asteroids</keyword> headed for Earth in the next 100 years. But the agency <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-simulated-asteroid-couldnt-stop-impact-europe-2021-5">expects</a> enormous space rocks to approach our planet eventually, and it has a plan to nudge them away. A new spacecraft — a mission called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test — is testing that plan. Its sole job: to crash head-on into the center of a distant asteroid.The probe, a box that is smaller than a golf cart, lifted off aboard the Falcon 9 at 1:21 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Once the rocket releases it into space, the <keyword id="12574842" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="dart" source="Orion">DART</keyword> spacecraft is expected to spend about two hours unfurling its solar panels.<div type="image" title="falcon 9 rocket lifting off at night with dart mission" height="1619" width="2880" msid="87884919" hostid="261"></div>If that goes smoothly, the probe will be hurtling toward a pair of asteroids. One, a moonlet called Dimorphos, orbits the other, Didymos. DART is aiming for the moonlet, which is about as big as a football stadium. It's set to reach its target, 6.8 million miles from Earth, in September 2022."We're going to hit it hard, but we're hitting it with a very small vehicle," Ed Reynolds, the DART project manager at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said at a press conference Monday. "When we're looking at what does it take to deflect an asteroid away from Earth — given enough time, you can do big things with small vehicles."<div type="image" title="rocket fairing two large halves close around small human-sized dart spacecraft" height="2249" width="1500" msid="87884072" hostid="261"></div>That nudge should be just enough to push Dimorphos closer to Didymos, causing it to orbit the larger asteroid about 10 minutes faster than before — every 11 hours and 45 minutes instead of every 11 hours and 55 minutes.If it succeeds, DART will prove the technology can change the paths of dangerous asteroids. It will also provide NASA with valuable data about how the collision affects the asteroid and how big a probe must be to move its target."I could imagine, for example, that we have a series of such impactors — a small number — that are actually in orbit and ready to go in case a threat occurred," Thomas Zurbuchen, an associate administrator at NASA, said at a prelaunch press conference Monday.<h2>DART's final hour will make or break the mission</h2>NASA isn't tracking every space rock in our neighborhood of the solar system. Astronomers have identified an estimated 40% of nearby asteroids that are 140 meters wide or larger — those big enough to level a city. Dimorphos, at 160 meters, is a perfect model of such a city killer.<div type="image" title="asteroid dimorphos edited next to rome Colosseum showing they are the same size" height="2418" width="2000" msid="87884074" hostid="261"></div>But other than its size and how quickly it orbits Didymos, scientists know little about their target. They can't see it directly with telescopes on Earth, instead gleaning information from changes in Didymos' light as the moonlet passes between the larger asteroid and Earth.NASA won't even know what shape Dimorphos is until DART's camera catches sight of it about an hour before collision.As Dimorphos comes into view, a spacecraft system called SMART Nav is programmed to rapidly calculate the looming asteroid's center. Then the probe's navigation system will fire its thrusters to steer it to the target.During its final approach, DART is programmed to beam a new photo back to Earth every second. A small Italian spacecraft, LICIACube, is set to release itself from DART 10 days before collision, fly alongside the NASA probe, and record the crash.The spacecraft should hit Dimorphos' center at 15,000 mph, or 4 miles a second, transferring its kinetic energy to the asteroid and pushing it closer to Didymos. NASA estimates that the impact will cause an explosion of 22,000 to 220,000 pounds of rock material, which could give the asteroid an even bigger push than DART itself.The European Space Agency plans to launch a follow-up mission, called Hera, to examine Didymos and Dimorphos in 2026. In addition to studying the aftermath of the impact, Hera would map Dimorphos, precisely measure its mass, and examine the crater DART leaves there.<h2>Nudging an asteroid works only if NASA has enough time to reach it</h2><div type="image" title="neocam asteroid hunter spacecraft discovery nasa jpl caltech" height="1476" width="1968" msid="87884075" hostid="261"></div>To use a DART-like mission to divert an Earth-bound boulder, NASA needs about five to 10 years' notice of an asteroid's advance, experts <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">previously told Insider</a>.That's because it takes years to design and build a spacecraft and then months or years to travel to the asteroid. What's more, the probe probably needs to hit an asteroid a year or two before its orbit would intersect with Earth. The slight nudge of a spacecraft impact takes the rock only slightly off course at first. But over time, that change carries it farther away from Earth.To identify hazardous asteroids with enough lead time, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">NASA is building a space telescope</a> called Near-Earth Object Surveyor to monitor large asteroids orbiting the sun near Earth. NASA hopes the telescope will identify 90% of asteroids 140 meters or larger."If we don't find these objects that could be an impact threat to the Earth — a hazard to the Earth — we can't do anything about them," Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary-defense officer, said in the Monday briefing.Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.

NASA launches DART probe on a head-on collision course with an asteroid

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomer-discover-youngest-asteroid-pair-ever-in-our-solar-system-2022-2">Astronomers</a> discovered a "planet killer" asteroid that may pose a threat to Earth in future millennia.</li><li>The discovery highlights a dangerous blind spot: it's hard to see <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">anything coming from the direction of the sun</a>.</li></ul>Astronomers discovered a large <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-confirms-dart-probe-crash-moved-asteroid-2022-10">asteroid</a> nearby this year, on a trajectory that could take it dangerously close to our planet in the distant future.The asteroid, called 2022 AP7, is about 1.5 kilometers wide — nearly one mile. That makes it a "planet killer," Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, said in a <a href="https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2226/">press release</a> announcing the discovery on Monday.Although the rock isn't as big as the one that led to dinosaurs' extinction, it's big enough to wreak planet-wide destruction and potentially change life on Earth as we know it.Thankfully, 2022 AP7 isn't headed for Earth anytime soon, especially not in the next century, according to researchers' calculations. "Way down the line, in the next few thousand years, it could turn into a problem for our descendants," Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast who was not involved in the study, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/science/asteroid-planet-killer.html">The New York Times</a>.But there could be other planet killer asteroids lurking unseen in the blind spot where 2022 AP7 was discovered: within the orbits of Earth and Venus, between us and the sun.<h2>The sun's glare could conceal dangerous asteroids</h2><div type="image" title="illustration of asteroid shadow with sun shining behind" height="720" width="1280" msid="95237774" hostid="261" sizebytes="31102"></div>In August 2020, an asteroid the size of a car passed closer to Earth than any known space rock had ever come without crashing. It missed our planet by about 1,830 miles.Astronomers didn't know the space rock existed until about six hours after it whizzed by. Nobody saw it coming, because it was approaching from the direction of the sun.Telescopes spot asteroids by detecting sunlight reflecting off of them. That makes it very difficult to spot asteroids located between Earth and the sun. The brilliant glare of our star — which is 109 times wider than Earth — easily drowns out the faint glint of a mile-wide asteroid. Plus, some asteroids aren't very reflective.To find more asteroids in this blinding zone, Sheppard's team used a camera designed to detect dark energy, mounted on a telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.They could only scan the near-sun sky during a 10-minute window at twilight, peering at the horizon just before the sun emerges. Sheppard's team was able to identify three previously unknown near-Earth asteroids, including 2022 AP7. The survey results were <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac8cff">published</a> in The Astronomical Journal on September 29."There are likely only a few [near-Earth asteroids] with similar sizes left to find," Sheppard said in the release.He added that most of the undiscovered asteroids probably stay closer to the sun, rather than coming near Earth's orbit.<h2>NASA is making Armageddon plans</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="95237775" hostid="261" sizebytes="58056"></div>NASA is working on a game plan for the day scientists detect an asteroid on a true collision course with Earth. The agency just slammed a spacecraft into a distant asteroid and successfully changed that asteroid's orbit around a larger space rock.That mission, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), was practice for striking any asteroid approaching Earth, giving it a nudge to steer it off course. No such asteroids have been identified, but NASA is preparing for the possibility of future discoveries.However, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">scientists previously told Insider</a> that NASA would probably need about five to 10 years to build and launch a DART-like deflection mission for an asteroid that posed a threat to Earth. That means astronomers must identify asteroids long before they approach our planet.NASA is slowly advancing a space telescope to track down more city killer asteroids in our cosmic neighborhood. That project, called the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">recently had its budget cut by more than $100 million</a>. It's set to launch as early as 2028.<div type="image" title="neocam asteroid hunter spacecraft discovery nasa jpl caltech" height="1712" width="1968" msid="95237776" hostid="261" sizebytes="205312"></div>The telescope is designed to help NASA fulfill a Congressional mandate to find and track 90% of all near-Earth objects 140 meters (460 feet) or larger in size. That's big enough to obliterate a city like New York. The goal was to find them by the end of 2020. Obviously, NASA is behind.So far, NASA estimates it has only catalogued 40% of those city killers. NEO Surveyor would help spot the rest of them. That includes asteroids coming from the direction of the sun.

'Planet killer' asteroid hidden by the sun may threaten Earth in a few thousand years

<ul><li>In a rare event, two asteroids are going to whiz past Earth within hours of each other. </li><li>They’re not the biggest objects on the Asteroid Watch List but they’re two of the closest asteroids to pass by the planet.</li><li>Asteroid 2019 OU1 will be a mere 1 million kilometers from the Earth’s core as it flies past Earth.</li></ul>Asteroids whiz past Earth on a regular basis but it’s rare to see two of them gunning for the planet on the same day. <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2019%20QS">2019 QS</a> will be the first asteroid to make an appearance today and it’s around the same size as Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro or the Japan Tsunamis that stretched to 40 meters high. It will be followed by another asteroid dubbed <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2019%20OU1">2019 OU1</a>, which is over twice the size of its partner — making it almost as big as a football field at 98 meters. Both of them are going to flying past Earth within a couple of hours of each other. Neither of these two asteroids are as huge some others which are going to fly past the planet this year. But, they’re still on National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/">Asteroid Watch List</a> of <keyword id="3106647" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="near-earth-objects">Near Earth Objects</keyword> (NEOs) that could pose a risk to the planet. That’s because they’re going to be flying in particularly close. It’s about the distance Most asteroids, regardless of size, are normally at least 3 million kilometers to the Earth’s core as they fly past. But 2019 QS, on the other hand, will come as close as 2 million kilometers. And, 2019 OU1 will be even closer — merely 1 million kilometers away. According to NASA’s Asteroid Watch, any NEO that’s within 7.5 million kilometers of Earth could be ‘potentially hazardous’. When space objects fly this close to the Earth, if external or internal factors were to change their trajectory even to a small degree — they could <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">collide </a>with the planet. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/Astronomers-Are-Planning-Dramatic-Ways-To-Stop-An-Asteroid-Collision/articleshow/21343800.cms">Yarkovsky effect</a>, for instance, is the simple result of sunlight pushing an asteroid and changing the way that it rotates. A gravitational keyhole — gravity from other objects or planets in space — is another factor that could cause asteroids to change direction. The bigger the asteroid, the bigger the risk — like the asteroid that nearly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/an-asteroid-nearly-half-the-size-of-mount-everest-might-be-on-a-collision-course-for-earth-in-less-than-a-year/articleshow/70698774.cms">half the size of Mount Everest and might be on a collision course for Earth in less than a year.</a> See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/what-happens-when-an-asteroid-actually-hits-earth/articleshow/70732006.cms">What happens when an asteroid actually 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/the-last-major-asteroid-to-hit-earth-destroyed-500-square-kilometers-and-it-could-have-been-much-worse/articleshow/70782507.cms">The last major asteroid to hit Earth destroyed 500 square kilometers — and it could have been much worse</a>

Two asteroids bigger than the Japan tsunamis are coming eerily close to Earth today

<ul><li>For an asteroid to actually destroy life on Earth, it will have to be bigger than the one that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. </li><li>The fact that humans are smarter gives them an edge over the dinosaurs when it comes to detecting and avoiding extinction level events — like an asteroid impact. </li><li>It would still be a set back for human history where people would either have to hide deep underground or survive eating shellfish. </li></ul>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/the-10-biggest-asteroids-that-could-crash-into-earth-this-year/articleshow/70686096.cms">large number of asteroids</a> are hovering all around the Earth, and we might get hit too sooner or later. But it will not be the Armageddon that everyone fears or the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-other-scientists-believe-asteroids-will-eventually-hit-earth/articleshow/70644547.cms">end of human life</a> as we know it. "In the order of things people should be worried about, <keyword id="3106647" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="near-earth-objects">Near Earth Objects</keyword> isn't highest on the list," states Lindley Johnson, the Planetary Defence Officer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the recently published book <a href="https://books.google.co.in/books?id=qFycDwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT45&amp;lpg=PT45&amp;dq=bryan+walsh+lindley+johnson&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=YV2WlASZOq&amp;sig=ACfU3U13mVhs1EQYXGnJs0Q1ug3A1C1EyA&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiu-f7w4afkAhVanI8KHeTGBvwQ6AEwAnoECAkQAg#v=onepage&amp;q=bryan%20walsh%20lindley%20johnson&amp;f=false">End Times</a>. "But it does have the potential to be the most devastating natural disaster known to man," explains Johnson. And, it's only a matter of time. "It's a 100% certain that we're going to get hit, but we're not 100% certain when," B612 President Danica Remy told NBC. Humans survived when the Sun was blocked out There is evidence that a kilometer long asteroid <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/525531/new-clues-from-earth-s-most-elusive-impact-crater?redirectedFrom=fulltext">crashed into Southeast Asia</a> around 800,000 years ago — and our ancestors had survived it. The asteroid did impact human evolution and blocked out the Sun for years with the dust it threw up. Yet, humanity was not wiped out. Scientists are yet to determine exactly how humans managed to survive and they're hoping that finding the exact impact site of the crater will help. Humans are smarter than dinosaurs The fact that humans are smarter than dinosaurs gives them an edge when it comes to surviving an asteroid impact. "So long as we retain at least stone age technology, there isn't much that could make us extinct," Robert Walker, a scientist and mathematician, told Science 2.0. It's possible that humans would go back to beach-combing or surviving on shellfish but they would survive, according to Walker. Another way to survive an asteroid impact would be to go deep underground to survive what would be a nuclear winter — similar to what follows a nuclear war, according to <a href="https://www.livescience.com/8825-asteroid-strike-force-humans-twilight-existence.html">Elisabetta Peirazzo</a>, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. NASA is working on a mission to survive asteroids As of now, there are a lot of asteroids whizzing past Earth — some of them a little too close to comfort — but none are on a direct collision course for the planet according to NASA's Planetary Defence Coordination Office (PDCO). If an asteroid were to shift its course, space agencies have telescopes on ground and in space, keeping an eye out. NASA is currently working on its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/elon-musk-says-we-have-no-defence-against-asteroid-god-of-chaos/articleshow/70748251.cms">defend the planet</a> against any extinction level asteroids that might come its way. 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/another-pair-of-asteroids-is-going-to-whiz-past-earth-on-14-september-bigger-faster-but-further-away/articleshow/70873664.cms">Another pair of asteroids is going to whiz past Earth on 14 September — Bigger, faster but further away</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/what-happens-when-an-asteroid-actually-hits-earth/articleshow/70732006.cms">What happens when an asteroid actually hits Earth</a>

For an asteroid to wipe out humans, it has to be bigger than the one that killed the dinosaurs

<ul><li>There was a one-in-7,000 chance that <keyword id="7880370" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="asteroid-2006-qv89">Asteroid 2006 QV89</keyword> would impact Earth on 9 September 2019.</li><li>Previous observations of the asteroid were not enough to figure out the asteroid's path, the scientists were unable to track QV89.</li><li>But, they do know where it would show up it it were on a collision course for Earth.</li><li>Using that information, the <keyword id="59844" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="European-Space-Agency">European Space Agency</keyword> (ESA) used a ‘non-detection’ technique to rule out the possibility of the QV89 crashing into the Earth.</li></ul>An asteroid which was expected to hit the Earth on 9 September 2019 might, not be on its way to Earth after all. Lately, there have been a lot of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/what-is-asteroid-meteorite-and-meteor/articleshow/70654013.cms">close calls</a> with asteroids as big as the Empire State Building and the Pyramid of Giza passing awfully close to Earth. Even though these asteroids aren't big enough to wipe out the planet, they could still <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-other-scientists-believe-asteroids-will-eventually-hit-earth/articleshow/70644547.cms">destroy whole cities</a> if they were to plummet to the planet's surface. Scientists speculate the resulting impact would be greater than the impact of nuclear bombs. Thankfully, the European Space Agency (<a href="https://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Safety/ESA_confirms_asteroid_will_miss_Earth_in_2019">ESA</a>) has determined that Asteroid 2006 QV89 is not on a ‘collision course’ to Earth because the asteroid isn’t where it’s supposed to be if it were heading here. In fact, there’s no sign of the asteroid in that area of deep space, and it’s highly unlikely that it’s coming to Earth at all — though some scientists feel its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-other-scientists-believe-asteroids-will-eventually-hit-earth/articleshow/70644547.cms">only a matter of time</a> This is the first time that a ‘non-detection’ technique has been used to rule out an asteroid impact. As long as it's not ‘there’ Since astronomers can’t determine the trajectory of the asteroid, they had no way of knowing where QV89 was. It’s hard to find something if you don’t know where to look. So, instead, the ESA and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) too look into deep space. No just anywhere, but in a small area of the sky where the asteroid would be seen if it were on its way to Earth. 
 <div type="image" title="ESA - orbit" msid="70270772" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The region of the sky where Asteroid 2000 QV89 should have been if it were on a collision course for Earth&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>



 Thankfully, it was empty. Why were we worried? There was only a one-in-7,000 chance that the asteroid would impact Earth based on observations from its first visit on August 2006. After it was sighted, the asteroid stuck around for ten days before disappearing into space, never to be seen since. Ten days is hardly enough time but anytime there is even a possibility, however remote, of an asteroid hitting Earth, observations and measurements are mandatory. Using the observations, scientists were able to determine the asteroid's path, the potential risk, and rule out a collision all together. But this time around it was concluded that there was a 1-in-7000 chance that it would collide with Earth on 9 September 2019. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/a-japanese-spacecraft-has-landed-on-an-asteroid-after-blasting-it-with-a-bullet-the-mission-will-bring-back-rock-samples-to-earth-/articleshow/70184280.cms">A Japanese spacecraft has landed on an asteroid after blasting it with a bullet. The mission will bring back rock samples to Earth.</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/asteroid-shows-half-of-the-worlds-ocean-came-from-outer-space/articleshow/69139347.cms">There’s now proof that half of the world’s oceans came from outer space</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/a-1100-foot-wide-asteroid-is-on-course-to-pass-by-earth-in-a-decade/articleshow/69153356.cms">A 1,100-foot-wide asteroid is on course to pass by Earth in a decade</a>

An asteroid was supposed to hit Earth in September — but astronomers can’t seem to find it

<ul><li>All it would take is an asteroid as big as a house travelling at 48,000 kilometers an hour colliding into Earth to have an impact equivalent to the Hiroshima nuclear bomb blast.</li><li>Any asteroid larger than one kilometer in diameter would push up so much dust and debris that it could block out the Sun and initiate another Ice Age.</li><li>Space agencies are keeping an eye on <keyword id="3106647" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="near-earth-objects">Near Earth Objects</keyword> passing close to Earth but even their methods aren’t full proof.</li></ul>Movies like Deep Impact, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/RANKED-The-10-movies-that-are-going-to-dominate-the-box-office-this-summer/articleshow/52226358.cms">Armageddon</a>, and even the animated The Good Dinosaur paint a vivid picture of what it would be like if an asteroid actually hit Earth. And, while the movies might be fictional — the reality of hundreds of asteroids whizzing past the planet is not. The reports of asteroids bigger than the Pyramid of Giza and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/an-asteroid-nearly-half-the-size-of-mount-everest-might-be-on-a-collision-course-for-earth-in-less-than-a-year/articleshow/70698774.cms">half the size of Everest</a> passing by awfully close to Earth has gotten some scientists thinking that it’s only a matter of time before an asteroid will collide with the planet’s surface. And it only seems more likely since, despite the Center of Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) and the Near Earth Object Coordination Center (NEOCC), recently illustrated how their methodology isn’t full proof. An <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/">undetected asteroid</a> dubbed 2019 OK missed crashing into Earth by a mere 73,000 kilometers on July 26 and space agencies didn’t know of it until the asteroid had already come and gone. 
 <div type="Youtube" id="Of3PK1O-6O0" title="What will happen if asteroids hit Earth" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Of3PK1O-6O0/mqdefault.jpg"></div>



 Size does matter All it would take is an asteroid that’s as big as a house travelling at 48,000 kilometers per hour to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/what-is-asteroid-meteorite-and-meteor/articleshow/70654013.cms">release the amount of energy</a> equivalent to the Hiroshima nuclear bomb blast. That means concrete buildings for at least half a mile around the impact site would be flattened and any city would face a grim fate. Increase the size of an asteroid to a 20 story building, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Russian-Meteor-Hit-Atmosphere-With-A-Force-Of-40-Hiroshima-Bombs/articleshow/21343758.cms">resulting impact </a>would be anywhere from 25 megatons to 50 megatons — the same as the largest nuclear bombs that in existence today. 
 <div type="image" title="2013_Chelyabinsk_meteor_trace" msid="70732061" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The Chelyabinsk meteor that entered Earth&amp;#39;s atmosphere over Russia on 15 February 2013 had the explosive energy of 200 kilotonnes of TNT &amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>



 Any asteroid that spans <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/how-large-asteroids-must-be-to-destroy-a-city-state-country-or-the-planet/articleshow/64806829.cms">more than a kilometer</a> in diameter can’t be comparable to any weapon that humans have created. The one million megatons of energy that would strike Earth will result in 10 times the damage from Hiroshima. And, like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, the dust and debris thrown back in the atmosphere would block out the sun. In case the asteroid lands in water instead of on land, the result wouldn’t be every different with tidal waves hundreds of feet high submerging whole coastlines. ‘The city killer’ asteroids The asteroid that snuck past Earth, 2019 OK, is between 57 to 130 meters in diameter making it as big as a second tallest statue in the world — the Spring Temple Buddha in China. And, it was travelling at a speed of 86,905 kilometers per hour when it whizzed past Earth. If the asteroid would have collided with Earth, it would have gone off like a nuclear weapon with the force of <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/">10 megatons</a> of TNT. When an asteroid of about the same size fell to Earth in 1908 — known as the <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/30jun_tunguska">Tunguska Impact</a> — it leveled 2,000 square kilometers of forest in Siberia. 
 <div type="image" title="tunguska_kulik_strip" msid="70732018" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Trees felled by the Tunguska explosion&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>



 ‘Planet killer’ asteroids The biggest of asteroid to ever hit Earth 65 million years ago was so devastating that it wiped out all the dinosaurs. Not because the asteroid literally landed on them but because it threw up so much moisture and dust into the atmosphere that sunlight was nowhere to be found. No sunlight meant no heat. The resulting drop in temperatures brought on the ice age and the dinosaurs were driven to extinction. As of now, the CNEOS and the NEOCC, don’t have any asteroid that’s quite as big on their radars on a collision course for Earth — but they do know that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/a-huge-asteroid-just-flew-past-earth-it-didnt-hit-us-but-others-might/These-space-rocks-are-leftovers-from-the-solar-systems-formation-some-4-6-billion-years-ago-A-big-one-slamming-into-Earth-could-mean-our-end-/articleshow/51336184.cms?format=slideshow">they’re out there</a>, like the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/an-asteroid-nearly-half-the-size-of-mount-everest-might-be-on-a-collision-course-for-earth-in-less-than-a-year/articleshow/70698774.cms">1998 OR2 that’s meant to pass by Earth in less than a year.</a> See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/the-10-biggest-asteroids-that-could-crash-into-earth-this-year/articleshow/70686096.cms">The 10 biggest asteroids that could crash into Earth in 2019</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-nearly-half-the-size-of-mount-everest-might-be-on-a-collision-course-for-earth-in-less-than-a-year/articleshow/70698774.cms">An asteroid nearly half the size of Mount Everest might be on a collision course for Earth in less than a year</a>

What happens when an asteroid actually hits Earth

<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>NASA <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-launches-dart-probe-into-collision-course-with-asteroid-2021-11">deliberately crashed a spacecraft</a> into an asteroid on Monday.</li><li>It's a test, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-is-crashing-dart-spacecraft-into-an-asteroid-2022-9">in case NASA has to deflect a dangerous asteroid</a> headed toward Earth in the future.</li></ul>NASA purposefully <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-is-crashing-dart-spacecraft-into-an-asteroid-2022-9">crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid</a> on Monday, in a first-of-its-kind test to learn how to defend the planet against rogue space rocks.The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-launches-dart-probe-into-collision-course-with-asteroid-2021-11">experiment</a> should tell us whether hurtling a spacecraft at high speeds into an asteroid is a viable strategy to deflect it. There are no asteroids that pose an immediate threat to human civilization at this time. But experts say it's only a matter of time before an asteroid big enough to wipe out a city crosses paths with Earth.NASA's 1,376-pound probe traveled about 6.8 million miles before crashing into the asteroid, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-nasa-launch-asteroid-crashing-spacecraft-dart-2021-11">as part of the </a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-nasa-launch-asteroid-crashing-spacecraft-dart-2021-11">Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-nasa-launch-asteroid-crashing-spacecraft-dart-2021-11">.</a> It did not survive the collision."Now is when the science starts," Lori Glaze, director of NASA's planetary science division, said after Monday's collision. "Now that we've impacted, we're going to see for real how effective we were.""We're embarking on a new era of humankind, an era in which we potentially have the capability to protect ourselves from something like a dangerous, hazardous asteroid impact," Glaze added.Scientists will be monitoring the trajectory of the asteroid, Dimorphos, which orbits a larger asteroid, Didymos. Neither asteroid pose a threat to the Earth, which is why NASA selected them. On Monday, the spacecraft provided a nearly real-time feed of its demise starting more than an hour before impact, thanks to its lone instrument — the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO). It took DART's final transmissions 38 seconds to reach Earth.<div type="image" title="Initial images from DRACO, which took one image per second to document the impact and aftermath" height="1248" width="2564" msid="94503117" hostid="261"></div>In the initial images from DRACO, shown above, Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos appeared as a single white dot. That changed as the spacecraft closed in.<div type="image" title="As the DART spacecraft flew closer, Dimorphos emerged as a separate point of light that grew larger and brighter." height="778" width="1400" msid="94503118" hostid="261"></div>Gradually, Dimorphos emerged as a separate point of light that grew larger and brighter, as in the image shown above. The asteroid ultimately took shape, filling the entire screen until just before impact.<div type="image" title="DRACO took live images as the spacecraft approached the space rock." height="947" width="2048" msid="94503122" hostid="261"></div>Below, one of the last frames beamed at Earth from DRACO before the DART spacecraft ate it, showing several boulders on the asteroid surface. The team knew the spacecraft successfully smashed into Dimorphos when they lost the spacecraft's signal, which was indicated when the live screen went red. The DART mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory erupted in applause after the probe's successful demise. <div type="image" title="Above, the last image from the DART mission taken by DRACO." height="947" width="2048" msid="94503125" hostid="261"></div>If all goes according to plan, scientists expect the collision will change the speed of Dimorphos by a fraction of 1%, altering its orbit around Didymos ever so slightly. The Italian Space Agency's LICIACube, a small satellite which traveled with the spacecraft and is now at a safe distance from it, will beam high-resolution photos of the impact back to Earth. It may take weeks for scientists on Earth to receive that data. Now that DART has been destroyed during the collision, follow-up observations with ground- and space-based telescopes — including NASA's new infrared eye in the sky, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-james-webb-hidden-details-infrared-galaxies-2022-7">James Webb Space Telescope</a> — will evaluate the asteroid system to see how much its orbit changed. <div type="image" title="Infographic showing the effect of DART's impact on the orbit of Dimorphos." height="1824" width="3120" msid="94503126" hostid="261"></div>Dimorphos has a mass of about 11 billion pounds and is about 525 feet in diameter, and it orbits another, larger asteroid — the 2,650-foot-wide Didymos.about 525 feet wide. <div type="image" title="An illustration shows the scale of Dymorphos and Didymos as compared to recognisable objects on earth like the Eiffel Tower and the Burj Khaliffa." height="1000" width="2000" msid="94503129" hostid="261"></div>Scientists hope the tiny nudge will be enough to change the trajectory of the space rock. They will also monitor debris that fly off of the asteroid after the impact. <div type="image" title="An animation looking from behind as NASA's first planetary defense test mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), collides with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos." height="300" width="600" msid="94503132" hostid="261"></div><h2>The Earth is not prepared for a city-killing asteroid </h2>Knowing how to knock a dangerous asteroid off its path is crucial information. But if a city-killer asteroid — that's an asteroid bigger than 460 feet — were headed toward Earth today, odds are scientists would be woefully unprepared. NASA has organized <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-impact-simulations-difficult-to-stop-2021-5">seven asteroid impact simulations since 2013</a>. A group of international experts was only able to fully stop the asteroid once, mostly because of the limited warning period given in the simulations. Experts previously told Insider that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">NASA would need five to 10 years</a> to build and launch a customized mission that could deflect an asteroid. There's also a risk experts might not spot the rock in time. NASA tracks about <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-next-generation-asteroid-impact-monitoring-system-goes-online">28,000 nearby asteroids.</a> But to date, only about 40% of city-killer asteroids orbiting Earth have been identified, Insider's Morgan McFall-Johnsen <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">previously reported.</a>This problem is not just theoretical. In recent years, there have been a few times when large space rocks came a little too close for comfort and scientists didn't spot them until it was too late.In 2019, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-flies-close-to-earth-surprising-scientists-2019-7">a city-killer sized asteroid came within 45,000 miles of Earth</a> and scientists only had a few days' warning of the flyby. An <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/car-size-asteroid-2020qg-missed-earth-by-2000-miles-2020-8">asteroid the size of a car</a> flew within 1,830 miles of Earth in 2020 — the closest any known space rock has come without crashing. Scientists only spotted it about six hours before it passed Earth.

NASA crashes DART spacecraft into an asteroid, testing a tactic to bump space rocks away from Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA has announced a new mission to a metal-rich asteroid called 16 Psyche. </li><li>The metals that 16 Psyche is thought to contain would be worth $100,000 quadrillion on Earth.</li></ul>NASA is visiting an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-returns-largest-ever-asteroid-sample-to-earth-origin-space-2023-9">asteroid in our solar system</a> worth more than the entire world economy, but that's not why it's going there. The space agency launched an uncrewed spacecraft today to explore the potato-shaped asteroid called Psyche.The metal-rich chunk of rock orbits the sun from a distance of 235 million to 309 million miles away, or about three times the distance from which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animation-shows-changing-seasons-as-the-earth-orbits-the-sun" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Earth orbits the sun</a>, according to <a href="https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/16-psyche/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA</a>.Psyche, also known as 16 Psyche, was the 16th <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-moon-asteroid-orbiting-sun-alongside-earth-astronomers-discover-2023-6">asteroid ever discovered</a>, by an Italian astronomer named Annibale de Gasparis in 1852.Gasparis named it after the Greek goddess of the soul, NASA said, and it's located between Mars and Jupiter. <h2>Going where no one has gone before</h2>NASA has never been to an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-bennu-is-hollow-spinning-to-death-2020-11">asteroid quite like this</a> — what makes Psyche so unique and different from other asteroid missions is its composition.Scientists believe that Psyche is mostly made of rock and metal, with metal making up about 30% to 60% of the asteroid.Some believe that Psyche contains metals like iron and nickel, a researcher who has studied the asteroid <a href="https://www.space.com/psyche-metal-asteroid-composition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Space.com</a>.The metals that Psyche is thought to contain would be worth over $100,000 quadrillion if they were found on Earth — that's more than the worth of the entire world economy, the Psyche mission's lead scientist, Lindy Elkins-Tanton, told Space.com.But NASA isn't going to Psyche <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-budget-estimates-opinions-poll-2018-12">for the money</a>, nor does it have the technology to even mine the asteroid in the first place. <h2>Why NASA is visiting asteroid 16 Psyche</h2>Psyche's origins are a bit of a mystery. It could be a chunk of the core of a planetesimal, a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/most-detailed-planet-formation-photos-2016-11">precursor to a rocky planet</a>. Or it could be a planetesimal's entire iron-rich core. Perhaps it's the remainder of another type of body that came from somewhere else in the solar system. Intense collisions might have caused it to shed its outer layers while our <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solar-system-earth-planet-forming-2016-4">solar system was forming</a>. NASA's scientists are eager to learn more about Psyche, because the asteroid could provide clues to Earth's own core, including how it formed and grew. Scientists have hints about how 16 Pysche looks thanks to a computer-generated 3D model. It seems to have two craters, but they won't know for sure until the asteroid's gravitational pull captures the spacecraft. That's expected to happen in July 2029. Then Psyche — the spacecraft — will spend two years orbiting the asteroid, taking photos, mapping the surface, and collecting other data about its composition. The visit could "provide a one-of-a-kind window into the violent history of collisions and accumulation of matter that created planets like our own," according to NASA.

NASA is visiting an asteroid valued at more than the entire world economy's worth, but that's not why it's going there

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-might-advance-asteroid-hunting-space-telescope-2021-5">NASA space telescope</a> could help <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">track down</a> 90% of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-impact-simulations-difficult-to-stop-2021-5">asteroids</a> big enough to crush New York.</li><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> is finally advancing the <keyword id="81842" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Telescope">telescope</keyword>, called NEO Surveyor, after years of passing it over.</li><li>By passing a key review, the telescope has escaped what one expert called "NASA mission limbo hell."</li></ul>NASA is finally moving forward with a <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> telescope that could spot <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">asteroids heading dangerously close to Earth</a>.The Near-Earth Object Surveyor Mission - NEO Surveyor, for short - has passed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-might-advance-asteroid-hunting-space-telescope-2021-5">a key review</a>, and NASA announced Friday that it's moving it to the next stage of development. Now engineers can start building new parts for the telescope, thereby keeping the mission on track for a 2026 launch."I'm over the moon," Amy Mainzer, who leads the project, told Insider. "We are excited to do our part to help cross the asteroid-impact issue off the world's list of worries."To protect the planet from an incoming asteroid, experts estimate they'd <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">need five to 10 years' warning</a> that a space rock was headed our way. Right now, an asteroid could easily approach Earth without anyone seeing it, since telescopes on the ground can only do limited surveillance."What you want to do is find them early, find them as early as possible - as in years, or even decades, before they pose a threat," Paul Chodas, the manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-might-advance-asteroid-hunting-space-telescope-2021-5">previously told Insider</a>. "The dinosaurs didn't have a space program, and look what happened to them. We have a space program. And given enough time, we can do something about this threat."NEO Surveyor would help NASA catalogue nearby <keyword id="81841" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Asteroids">asteroids</keyword> and chart their paths through the solar system, so that someday - if necessary - humanity may have a shot at destroying or deflecting any space rocks on a collision path with Earth.For years, work on this kind of infrared telescope had been caught in "NASA mission limbo hell," MIT astronomer Richard Binzel <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-might-advance-asteroid-hunting-space-telescope-2021-5">previously told Insider</a>. Now the project is finally moving forward.<h2>NASA needs a space telescope to defend Earth from city-crushing asteroids</h2><div type="image" title="asteroid earth fly by" height="2139" width="2852" msid="83450835" hostid="261"></div>Experts from around the world <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">practiced for a hypothetical asteroid strike</a> in April. It didn't go well.At the Planetary Defense Conference, a group of 200 participants from about two dozen countries worked through a hypothetical scenario in which an asteroid was set to crash into Earth in six months. They determined that no existing technologies could stop the space rock, since the time frame was too short to launch a mission that could destroy or deflect an asteroid.Without a space telescope like NEO Surveyor, it's very possible that an asteroid could sneak up on our planet like the one in the April simulation. It has already happened a few times.In 2013, a house-sized asteroid screamed into the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia and exploded. The blast sent out a shock wave that broke windows, damaged buildings, and injured more than 1,400 people. No one on Earth saw it coming. That same day, a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/02/15/172080937/no-link-between-meteor-that-hurt-hundreds-and-asteroid-about-to-fly-by">larger asteroid</a> came within 17,000 miles of the planet.<div type="image" title="asteroid russia Chelyabinsk" height="3744" width="5616" msid="83450836" hostid="261"></div>Jim Bridenstine, who served as the Trump administration's NASA Administrator, said in 2019 that the agency's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-threat-of-meteor-crashing-into-earth-is-bigger-than-you-think-2019-5">modeling</a> suggests an event like the Chelyabinsk meteor occurs about every 60 years.But the Chelyabinsk rock was small - about 50 feet wide. In 2019, a 427-foot, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-flies-close-to-earth-surprising-scientists-2019-7">"city-killer" space rock</a> flew within 45,000 miles of Earth, and NASA had almost no warning about that either.Then last August, an asteroid the size of a car passed closer to Earth than any known space rock had ever come without crashing. It missed our planet by about 1,830 miles. Astronomers didn't know the asteroid existed until about six hours after it whizzed by. Nobody saw it coming, because it was approaching from the direction of the sun.Telescopes on the ground can only observe the sky at night, which means they miss almost everything that flies at us from the sun. NEO Surveyor, from its perch in Earth's orbit, would be able to spot such space rocks. Since it would use infrared light, it could also spot asteroids that are too dark for Earth-based telescopes.<div type="image" title="asteroid belt vega" height="585" width="1041" msid="83450837" hostid="261"></div>Plans for this kind of space telescope have been in the works since 2005, when Congress mandated that NASA find and track 90% of all <keyword id="1821718" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="near-Earth-objects">near-Earth objects</keyword> 140 meters (460 feet) or larger in size. That's big enough to obliterate a city like New York.The initial deadline was 2020. But NASA has only spotted about 40% of those objects so far. NEO Surveyor is designed to bring the agency up to its 90% goal within a decade of launch."Every day we wait is one day less that we have the information we need to make a response," said Binzel, who studies potentially hazardous asteroids. "What that means is, for now, we are relying on luck to keep us safe from major <keyword id="2929843" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid-impacts">asteroid impacts</keyword>. But luck is not a plan."<h2>The NEO Surveyor team is forging ahead - maybe with a budget boost</h2>Mainzer first submitted the idea for an asteroid-hunting space telescope in 2006. NASA declined to take it on as a mission, funding other projects instead. She submitted proposals in 2010 and 2015 as well, but the agency kept passing.NEO Surveyor finally <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-telescope-to-detect-deadly-asteroids-2019-9">became an official NASA mission</a> in 2019. Since then, the project has been in what NASA calls "Phase A" - a stage focusing on design and technology development. Now that they're moving on to Phase B, Mainzer and her team can start building prototypes and developing hardware and software.They could soon get a major influx of cash, too. NASA's budget request for 2022 allots <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2022_congressional_justification_nasa_budget_request.pdf">$197 million</a> for planetary defense, including $143 million for NEO Surveyor - though Congress must still approve it.That would be a significant increase from the $28 million the mission received in 2021. NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen <a href="https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasas-new-neo-mission-will-substantially-reduce-time-to-find-hazardous-asteroids/">estimated</a> in 2019 that developing the telescope could cost about $500 to $600 million in total.The budget request and Friday's Phase B approval are "double good <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> for citizens of planet Earth," Binzel said, though he added that now, "the ball in squarely in Congress' court.""The clock is ticking," Mainzer said. "We really want to get off the ground as quickly as possible."Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.

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