Task 4

NASA Says “No Chance” Small Asteroid Will Hit Earth On March 5th

5 Feb , 2016 by Matt Williams

On October 6th, 2013, the Catalina Sky Survey discovered a small asteroid which was later designated as 2013 TX68. As part Apollo group this 30 meter (100 ft) rock is one of many Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) that periodically crosses Earth’s orbit and passes close to our planet. A few years ago, it did just that, flying by our planet at a safe distance of about 2 million km (1.3 million miles).
And according to NASA’s Center for NEO Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it will be passing us again in a few weeks time, specifically between March 2nd and 6th. Of course, asteroids pass Earth by on a regular basis, and there is very rarely any cause for alarm. However, there is some anxiety about 2013 TX68’s latest flyby, mainly because its distance could be subject to some serious variation.
Basically, the asteroid is expected to make its closest approach on March 5th, and will pass Earth at a distance of between 14 million km (9 million) and 17,000 km (11,000 miles). By comparison, the Earth’s Moon lies at an average distance of 384,399 km (238,854 miles) from Earth, ranging from about 362,600 km (225,309 mi) at perigee to 405,400 km (251,904 mi) at apogee.
This means that there is a chance that, between March 2nd and 6th, this small asteroid will get far closer to Earth than the Moon ever does. The reason for this variation in estimates has to do with the trajectory of the asteroid, which scientists cannot entirely predict. This in turn is due to the fact that they have only been able to track it since its discovery, just three years ago.
But before anyone starts contemplating building bomb shelters in their backyard and stocking up on dry goods and bottled water, there are few things that need to be clarified. For one, scientists at CNEOS have determined that there is NO CHANCE the asteroid will impact on the Earth on this pass.
And while NASA has identified an extremely remote possibility that 2013 TX68 could impact Earth when it passes us again on Sep. 28th, 2017, the odds of that actually happening are no more than 1-in-250-million. To top it off, the asteroid will be making flybys again in 2046 and 2097, and in both cases the odds of an impact are even lower.
As Paul Chodas, manager of the CNEOS, explained in a recent NASA press release:

“The possibilities of collision on any of the three future flyby dates are far too small to be of any real concern. I fully expect any future observations to reduce the probability even more… This asteroid’s orbit is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it. There is a chance that the asteroid will be picked up by our asteroid search telescopes when it safely flies past us next month, providing us with data to more precisely define its orbit around the sun.”

In addition, in the unlikely event that the asteroid does hit Earth, it is too small to cause any significant damage. Consider the asteroid that broke up in the atmosphere over the Russian town of Chelyabinsk in 2013. That asteroid measured roughly 20 meters across (65 feet), and caused significant property damage and over 1500 injuries. However, this damage was limited to the effects of the sonic boom caused by its explosion in the atmosphere.
What’s more, much of the damage caused by the Chelyabink asteroid was due to the fact that it was undetected before its atmospheric entry – in part because its radiant was close to the Sun. As such, much the harm it caused was the result of panic and the townspeople being unprepared.
At roughly 30 meters (100 feet) in diameter, 2013 TX68 would likely produce an air burst with about twice the energy of the Chelyabink asteroid. However, since scientists are actively monitoring this and other NEOs, the odds of it exploding above a community without warning are even worse than it actually entering our atmosphere.
Above all, we should remind ourselves that Near-Earth Asteroids pass by Earth all the time and cause no damage. In fact, NASA’s Near Earth Object Program (NEOP) indicated that in 2016 alone, NEO’s have passed Earth on ten occasions. What’s more, the JPL’s Asteroid Watch program has listed the next five approaches that will take place in February, and has concluded that these will all take place at distances of between 7,338,608 km (4,560,000 mi) and 151,440 km (94,100 mi).
And before 2016 is out, NEOP anticipates that NEOS will make another 80 passes of Earth. In the vast majority of these cases, the asteroids will be well outside of the Moon’s orbit. Of course, if you still feel concerned, you can always check Asteroid Watch’s Twitter account for news and updates on the possible approach of asteroids.
 
 http://www.universetoday.com/127215/small-asteroid-to-pass-earth-on-march-5th/

My Opinion

Universe, a place where all the mysteriousness of the universe is ready to be revealed, and a little story about the violence of the universe that is when a celestial body of a collision with a celestial body to another, and it will be horrible stories when the objects have a very large size, the earth itself has a history of how it was hit by space objects lost and went into orbit the earth.

Some are destroyed because they can not penetrate the atmosphere there is also a brave and brutally devastated the earth's surface. Of several thousands even millions of foreign substances that had fallen to earth will summarize it so 10 biggest meteor that had fallen to earth with a horrible way, among others:

1.        Barringer, Arizon, United States: Lasted 49,000 years ago. Asteroid about 45 meters, weight +/- 300,000 tons making capability of 20 million tons of TNT crashed into the surface to produce a 2 km wide crater with a depth of 175 m. Was first discovered by Aniel Barringer in 1902.

2.        Bosumtwi, Ghana: Lasted 1.3 million years ago. The size is not in the know. Ability time crashing into the unknow. Led to the crater with a diameter of 10.6 km with a depth of 45 m. Now it's become a crater lake.

3.        Deep Bay, Canada: Lasted 100 million years ago. The size is not in the know. Ability time crashing into the unknow. Led to the crater with a diameter of 13 km with a depth of 220 m, now it's become a crater lake.

4.        Aorounga, Chad: Lasted 200 million years ago. Asteroid about 1 mile (1.6 km). Ability time crashing into the unknow.

5.        Gosses Bluff, Australia: Lasted 142 million years ago. Asteroid about 22 km. Ability time 22.000 megatons of TNT crashed into the surface. Led to the crater with a diameter of 24 km with a depth of 5000 m.

6.        Mistastin Lake, Canada: When will the course unknow. Unknown size. Ability time crashing into the unknown. Led to an open hole with a diameter of 24 km.

7.        Clearwater Lakes, Canada: Lasted 290 million years ago. Two twin-diameter asteroid respectively about 32 km and 22 km, hit the Earth in the same way.

8.        Kara-Kul, Tajikistan: Lasted  5 million years ago. Unknown size. Ability time crashing into the unknown. Yielded 25 km wide crater.

9.        Manicouaga, Canada: Lasted  212 million years ago. Asteroid diameter of about 5 km. Ability time crashing into the unknown. Led to the crater with a diameter of 100 km.

10.     Chicxulub, Mexico: Lasted  65 million years ago. About 107 km diameter asteroid or by the island of Bali. Ability 100 teratons TNT takes hit the surface. Produced mega-stunami, earthquake, all the mountain erupted in a way simultaneously in all the earth's surface, all the creatures that live on land as well as the weather at that time none of the survivors and if they are they then going to die because of nuclear winter throughout 300,000 years after the impact of a collision the earth left the rest of the wound as wide as 900 km on the earth's surface (can only be seen from a satellite).

       At 109 years ago, an asteroid crashed into the Earth in Arizona, make a hole with a depth of 190 meters and a diameter of 3300 meters. Something similar happened in Wolf Creek, Australia, made a deep basin of 18 meters and 170 meters wide, also in Wabar, Saudi Arabia, the impact is almost the same as in Australia.

At 65 million years ago, the extinction of the dinosaurs allegedly associated with the fall of the asteroid with a diameter of approximately 10 km, in the form of a giant meteor to Earth. The meteor fell in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico formed the Chicxulub crater (South Tails) diameter of 200-300 km, and a depth of 3 km, which is part of the Gulf of Mexico. However, approximately 8 million a year earlier, had been preceded by the formation of the Manson Crater in Ohio diameter of 35 km.

Similar conditions were indeed found plenty of research results. Also the possibility of something similar in the future. Simulations of collision scenarios it had done scientist Steven Ward and Erik Asphaug of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Chances to actually crash into our planet is only one in three hundred. Even though there are many more with a larger size, their arrival will be slower than the discovery of asteroid destruction weapons are now also being developed. Although the funds are minimal. Moreover, a group of scientists, many of whom are working only based on the spirit and ideals rather than real help governments, working hard to find powerful methods crippling asteroid, before the distance is getting closer to Earth.

NASA is already more than halfway examine asteroids and comets that will be at the closest distance to Earth is called "near-Earth objects," or NEOs (near earth objects) covering an area of more than one kilometer. Experts estimate that the probability of an object of that size and could hit the Earth in the next century is just one of thousands of others. However, its impact will be very broad.

However, the astronomers confirms that the astronomical phenomena as exposed above is normal and inevitable. The threat is indeed terrible, but it is a natural phenomenon that is reasonable and indeed a necessity. What is even more terrible that the destruction of the earth not because the asteroid, but because the act of inhabitants is taking place slowly but surely. The population of the earth is getting bloated, foodstuffs are increasingly depleted, pollution everywhere. The technology is already developed, but their use is not solely directed to human welfare, but more to fight other humans.

If it were so, the astronomical phenomena of large numbers as shown above, it seems to be seen as a warning to arouse our consciousness, that covetousness will not create a permanent human. In fact, the possibility of an asteroid collision when it became the "gong cover of" life on earth , in other words is the end, that indeed the undescribed in various religious scriptures.