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chrisdh79 OP t1_iuijh8f wrote

From the article: A team of researchers has detected a trio of near-Earth asteroids in the inner solar system, one of which is the largest found since 2014 that poses a potential risk to the planet. The asteroids remained undetected until now because they occupy a region of the sky hidden by the Sun’s glare.

Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are two types of near-Earth objects that space agencies like to keep track of. Despite the scary-sounding names, none of them pose any imminent threat to us. Currently, there are 1,454 NEAs that have a non-zero probability of impacting Earth in the next 100 years. You can find a complete list of NEOs at NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies.

The three near-Earth asteroids were found using the Dark Energy Camera in Chile. The camera took deep-field images close to Earth’s horizon during twilight, to combat the Sun’s glare and atmospheric distortions. The team’s results are published in The Astronomical Journal.

“Our twilight survey is scouring the area within the orbits of Earth and Venus for asteroids,” said Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science and the paper’s lead author, in a NOIRLab release. “So far we have found two large near-Earth asteroids that are about 1 kilometer across, a size that we call planet killers.”

Two of the recently observed asteroids have orbits that safely skirt Earth, but one of the rocks—a 0.93-mile-wide (1.5-kilometer) asteroid dubbed 2022 AP7—has an orbit that may eventually put it on a collision course with Earth.

To be perfectly clear: The asteroid is not currently barreling toward Earth. but its path could bring it close enough one day that NASA will want to keep tabs on it.

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FloodMoose t1_iuimiyu wrote

>To be perfectly clear: The asteroid is not currently barreling toward Earth. but its path could bring it close enough one day that NASA will want to keep tabs on it.

That's what most people need to see.

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zeeblecroid t1_iujmv2e wrote

And it will be the most consistently-buried part of every single article about this for the next week or two, I'll bet.

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SeekingImmortality t1_iuip4xt wrote

Lets just not treat it like we treated climate change 'Eh, it might be a problem eventually, no need to do anything about it now, ...or now when its closer, ... or now when it's already happening....'

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Xkloid t1_iuiqm2p wrote

Don't worry, politicians will find a reason we need to give up more liberties in order for us to be saved from the asteroid, just give it time.

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falafelbot t1_iuiwcoe wrote

Your father and I are for the jobs the comet asteroid will provide

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