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insufficientmind t1_jdnsk2e wrote

NASA also says this:

"Newly-discovered asteroid 2023 DZ2 will sail safely past Earth today. Asteroids pass our planet safely all the time, but a close approach by one of this size (140–310 ft, or 43–95 m) happens only about once per decade. (There is no known threat for at least the next 100 years.)"

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[deleted] t1_jdo9erh wrote

[deleted]

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censored_username t1_jdocx9y wrote

>This asteroid is about 100X smaller than the one that killed the dinosaurs

Additional note, it is 100x smaller in linear size, which puts it around the order of a million times lighter than the chicxulub asteroid.

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[deleted] t1_jdob19t wrote

isnt the size of this one comparable to the one that landed in russia a decade or so ago?

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[deleted] t1_jdobd49 wrote

[deleted]

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assassin5 t1_jdopod1 wrote

In which case it would be like dropping a nuke in New York, no biggie.

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binzoma t1_jdord9w wrote

yes, but the probability of it hitting a population centre is VERY low. most of the world is water. most of the remainder is land that is farm/forest/desert/tundra

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daveinpublic t1_jdov5du wrote

I feel like I’m in an echo chamber

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TheRealJuksayer t1_jdoxzq8 wrote

But it is big, but it won't hurt, but it could hurt, but the earth is big...

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hunnerbunner2000 t1_jdpvfvl wrote

yes, but the probability of it hitting a population centre is VERY low. most of the world is water. most of the remainder is land that is farm/forest/desert/tundra

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FQDIS t1_jdp4gt4 wrote

^echo ^chamber… ^echo ^chamber…

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Guses t1_jdonewp wrote

You guys know about Tunguska? It was thought to be only 56-foot-wide (50 m) asteroid. It flattened trees over 830 square miles when it burst in the air. That's flattening an entire area 28 miles by 28 miles. And that's on the lower end of the range for DZ2.

Could easily kill millions of people in an instant.

Kinda scary that there are objects like this that are floating around and that we only notice at the last minute.

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LowVacation6622 t1_jdnzd9i wrote

"...No 'known' threat..." Therein lies the rub

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GhostBurger12 t1_jdo0ns3 wrote

Why is it a rub?

It doesn't infer there is an unknown collision threat guaranteed to show up in the next 100 years.

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Icy-Conclusion-3500 t1_jdo1whn wrote

It’s mostly a little ironic to note since they JUST discovered this asteroid that is making a close approach

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youdubdub t1_jdo8wpn wrote

Based upon your username, I’m thinking you are predicting any potential collision would rather be with a comet.

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Rhaedas t1_jdoart8 wrote

It actually validates the claim. There is still no known threat in the next 100 years.

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Icy-Conclusion-3500 t1_jdobtce wrote

Yes, but it’s said in like a “don’t worry!” way, but clearly we haven’t found them all.

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Rhaedas t1_jdochbw wrote

We'll never find them all if you include ones that are perturbed from the outer parts of the system to fall inward. And we'll definitely not find ones in time without a better search and detection program. Relying on amateur astronomers and rare free time at the major telescopes, both only done at night, it pretty limited and why so many near passes are discovered after they do pass and not before.

I do wonder if there's any validity in Asimov's prologue for Rama, where Spaceguard uses a nuclear blast (neutron?) to generate a radar image of the system to map just about everything. Of course Rama was conveniently not in this scan.

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danielravennest t1_jdrd3al wrote

> And we'll definitely not find ones in time without a better search and detection program.

There are already dedicated telescopes like Atlas. A much bigger survey telescope is under construction, the Rubin Observatory. It is expected to increase discoveries by a factor of 10.

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Rhaedas t1_jdrlzvf wrote

Both impressive and the results of Atlas since operation shows it's doing a great job. A space-based telescope system would be able to do so much more, especially since it wouldn't have the limitations of only scanning the night sky that a ground one does. A key point - any impactor that is in a orbit similar to Earth's is that the last years of its path will be from the Sun side of the planet. The sooner we see anything and can calculate mass and vectors the sooner we can do any action that we might be able to do. Another key point - to be able to do anything like deflection we have to get to the object first long before its arrival, so knowing years in advance is crucial.

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Guses t1_jdonwwo wrote

>There is still no known threat

Known being the key word. We didn't know about this thing until it was on top of us.

Risks are low but the outcome could be really really bad.

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danielravennest t1_jdrc942 wrote

The search programs have found nearly all the 1 km+ size "potentially hazardous objects" (come within 5% of the Earth's orbit size). They are working on the 140 meter and up size (city killers).

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xaeru t1_jdoq41e wrote

What is the known threat past 100 years?

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danielravennest t1_jdres22 wrote

Unknown. This asteroid was only discovered a month ago. To make long-term predictions you need to know the current orbit precisely. It hasn't been watched long enough to do that yet. The close pass will help. They can use radar to get some very good measurements

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daveinpublic t1_jdovsub wrote

Can we see it when it passes by?

What direction should we look? What time?

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r0ckH0pper t1_jdp8rcn wrote

There is no identified murderer in Chicago who is known to kill anyone today. But, I do know that means nothing and that death is nigh.

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anon-eh-maus t1_jdplr50 wrote

Yet its happened multiple times in the last 5 years. Sus

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