NASA’s recent grim warning highlights the hidden risks Earth faces as small asteroids “sneak” past radar systems undetected.
Asteroids can approach from a “blind spot,” making it challenging for scientists to observe their movements.
Recently, NASA-funded scientists have discovered that Earth’s orbit, as it revolves around the Sun, contains numerous “blind spots,” allowing certain space objects to approach us, especially during the night, without being observed by computerized telescopes.
Research published in the journal Icarus reveals that 50% of collisional agents that come close to Earth at a specific angle experience an unusual phase of motion, making their detection difficult.
Specifically, this occurs when asteroids approach Earth from the eastern part of the sky, around 2 a.m. During this time, Earth’s rotation and its orbit can make these flying objects appear to move very slowly or even seem “motionless,” even though that’s not the case. The research team states, “Observers should exercise caution when monitoring the sky in this direction and actively track slowly moving objects as they appear.”
The Barringer Meteor Crater, a famous landmark with a 1.2 km diameter in the northern Arizona desert (USA), stands as a dramatic testament to the scars on Earth caused by asteroids.
In 2019, a 100-meter-diameter asteroid passed Earth at a distance of only 69,000 km. The dangerous part was that we detected it just 24 hours in advance. Following this close call, the U.S. Congress tasked NASA with accurately identifying the positions and flight paths of 90% of asteroids larger than 140 meters, as they could cause significant destruction if they collided with Earth.
According to Professor Richard Wainscoat, who leads the research team at the University of Hawaii, approximately 40% of large asteroids approaching Earth have been cataloged. As of April 17, 2021, the world had recorded 25,647 objects, including asteroids and comets, approaching Earth. In 2020 alone, a record number of 2,959 objects were detected.
However, in 2020 alone, a network of astronomical observation stations worldwide, located in over 40 countries, collected nearly 39.5 million records of similar objects observed—significantly more than the official statistics indicate.
Many scientists believe that the extinction of dinosaurs resulted from a large asteroid impact on Earth 64 million years ago, striking the region of Central America. The most reliable hypothesis regarding this impact suggests that it generated a dust layer obscuring sunlight for years, ultimately killing off the majority of plant species, which were the primary food source for dinosaurs, leading to their extinction.
Fortunately, the universe is vast, and the likelihood of Earth being hit by an asteroid is very low, occurring only once every few thousand years. Therefore, there is no need for excessive concern about this possibility.