[HN Gopher] Scientists discover near-Earth asteroid hours before...
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Scientists discover near-Earth asteroid hours before it exploded
over Berlin
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 72 points
Date : 2024-01-23 14:05 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.livescience.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.livescience.com)
| PorterBHall wrote:
| Headline: "...exploded over Berlin" Body: "...producing a bright
| but harmless fireball visible for miles around."
| blueflow wrote:
| Someone is getting paid for clicks.
| Xylakant wrote:
| It also wasn't over Berlin, but like 60 kilometers away.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| And I live 2 hours' drive outside of DC but if I'm talking to
| someone not from the region I just say "DC area" if asked
| where I live.
|
| It's pretty common to reference a nearby place name that is
| well known/recognized versus a place name that might be more
| accurate but leaves most receivers/readers/etc thinking
| "...where?"
| yencabulator wrote:
| The article did not say "Berlin area", so your "DC area" is
| not the same.
|
| If something happens over your house, is it "over
| Washington"?
| peddling-brink wrote:
| I really don't see that as misleading. Do you? Evocative
| imagery for sure, but that's surely less boring than "the
| specimen exhibited an incandescence of magnitude..."
| rzzzt wrote:
| It boils down to whether the main goal is to have fun or read
| something factual. If "west of Berlin near Nennhausen" ===
| "over Berlin", I don't know what to say.
| AlbertoGP wrote:
| Same as "Gigafactory Berlin".
| rzzzt wrote:
| There's an agglomeration area around Berlin(-Brandenburg)
| which is similar to a sibling commenter's "DC area"
| example (of course smaller). The Gigafactory is just
| outside this imaginary dotted line; Nennhausen is way
| over to the West.
| AlbertoGP wrote:
| I see, just checked it up on a map and you are right of
| course, thanks for the correction.
| tocs3 wrote:
| "but this one was unique because it was first detected by
| scientists roughly three hours before impact -- only the eighth
| time that researchers have spotted one of these space rocks
| before it hit."
|
| Maybe I did not read close enough but how is it "first"?
| kvdveer wrote:
| "first detected", meaning this asteroid wasn't detected before.
| They don't claim anything about earlier detection of other
| asteroids.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| They do claim that this asteroid is somehow unique.
|
| The best I can guess is that 8 of these have been detected
| before they hit, but only this one was detected 3 hours
| before it did. The rest must have been detected with longer
| or shorter times before impact (presumably longer).
|
| Alternatively, perhaps it is unique because of its small
| size, at only 1 meter.
| teraflop wrote:
| The word "first" in that sentence means the first detection of
| _this_ asteroid, not that it was the first asteroid detected in
| the same way.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| then what imparts the "unique" characteristic?
| olddustytrail wrote:
| I think "unique" is being used in the figurative sense of
| "very unusual".
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Interesting, I have literally never head it used that
| way. Doubly so in the same sentence as the comparable
| events.
|
| Im not trying to debate, just surprised that is even
| considered an option.
| feoren wrote:
| The other responses actually have this a bit wrong: this was
| unique among "bright fireball" asteroid impacts, because before
| it impacted (second), it was (first) detected. "First" is
| referring to the order of events: detection first, impact
| second. Not referring to the first of its kind, or even the
| first detection of this asteroid. It's saying these types of
| impacts usually just appear in the sky without first being
| detected by observatories. Although it's clearly not "unique"
| if that's the 8th time this has happened. The article is just
| kinda poor quality.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| Really burying the important takeaway at the bottom:
|
| Starting in 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile --
| funded by the National Science Foundation -- will catalog the
| solar system from the ground...
|
| "It took us 200 years to discover all the asteroids we know to
| date, about 1.2 million asteroids," Mario Juric, the Rubin
| Observatory's solar system discovery team lead and the director
| of the University of Washington's DiRAC Institute, told
| Astronomy. "In the first three to six months of Rubin, we will
| double that."
|
| That's one additional ground based observatory coming online in
| the Southern hemisphere. If we get our act together and build a
| lot more of these and other space based observatories we're going
| to see the true scope of the "shooting gallery". We really need
| to raise public awareness of this, as a planet based civilization
| we are taking our chances by ignoring the problem and assuming
| everything will be fine for a hundred or a thousand more years.
| All of our efforts at averting a climate catastrophe will be for
| naught if we get smoked by a rock big enough to fill the
| atmosphere with particulate matter and drop global temperatures
| for years afterward let alone anything bigger resulting in global
| firestorms and tsunamis.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Doesn't even need to be a planet killer, even a small object
| like the Tunguska event hitting a large city (Like NYC) would
| cost trillions in damage and millions of lives, the equivalent
| of a nuclear bomb going off. The cost to build some
| surveillance and technology to mitigate it would be far less.
|
| And prevention wouldn't require Bruce Willis to blow it up with
| nukes, like the DART mission all you'd need is to hit the space
| rock with a fast moving, small probe and alter its course by a
| millionth of a degree far enough out, could be the difference
| between hitting a city, landing in the ocean, or not hitting
| earth at all.
| vorticalbox wrote:
| I read somewhere about the idea of sending white paint to
| coat one side this would cause one side to get hotter and
| cause the asteroid to spin sending it off course.
|
| I'm quite sure it wouldn't work but was an interesting idea.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| The problem is that they rotate. Maybe an electronically
| controlled jet that triggers only when aligned in the right
| direction.
| truculent wrote:
| Presumably it would be more efficient to use jet to
| stabilise it, so that the painted deflector can take
| effect
| zamadatix wrote:
| If you can detect it early enough an absolutely miniscule
| amount of force can multiply over time to an enormous
| difference in position later on. Much less force than
| would be required to stop it from spinning or sending
| material to act as a deflector.
| lencastre wrote:
| Challenge accepted!
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| A Tunguska event exploding over Moscow could even trigger the
| 'Perimeter' system without human intervention. And likely
| most of the missiles are pre-programmed with US targets...
| echoangle wrote:
| The probability of that is really low though, theres not a
| lot of area with dense population when looking at the whole
| earth. And for your redirection to work, you would need
| really precise trajectory predictions while still very far
| away so a small impulse is enough.
| hyperthesis wrote:
| Wouldn't the most dangerous trajectories be the hardest to
| observe?
|
| Of those 1.2 million orbits, how many are dangerous?
| lazide wrote:
| Don't forget, occasionally the trajectories get perturbed.
|
| If it helps you sleep at night, over the billions of years
| earth has been in its current orbit, it's already 'eaten' all
| the high risk asteroids.
|
| What we're dealing with now are very much the long-long-long
| tail hazards.
|
| Which do exist.
|
| But the earths crust was molten in it's early life due in
| some large part due to persistent and high volume infalling
| asteroids, and that time is long gone.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| > All of our efforts at averting a climate catastrophe...
|
| Uh, which efforts?
| gnicholas wrote:
| I was interested to learn about the mentioned 2013 meteor that
| resulted in injuries. Not sure how I didn't hear about that when
| it happened. My takeaway is that if you see something that looks
| like it's a bright fireball, close your eyes and turn away. And
| apparently move away from windows. Funny to see that the "duck
| and cover" exercises they do in schools are actually useful for
| (extremely rare) events like this. [1]
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I'm surprised you didn't hear about it either. That was widely
| covered and talked about IRL at the time. Craziest thing I ever
| seen. All the dash cam videos just mesmerized me. I still think
| about it often.
| eichin wrote:
| Yeah, it made a lot of mainstream media. (It was also pretty
| much the _only_ thing on space-youtube and russian-dashcam-
| youtube for weeks :-) Sort of "The Dark Knight"-esque use of
| a massive array of distributed cameras as an observatory...
| opello wrote:
| > Funny to see that the "duck and cover" exercises they do in
| schools are actually useful for (extremely rare) events like
| this.
|
| I thought we knew that despite modern criticism that duck and
| cover was effective for those outside of some range given a
| nuclear explosion?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_cover#Efficacy_during...
|
| I also think that those exercises haven't been done in schools
| for quite some time. I never did them despite plenty of fire
| and severe weather drills.
| gmuslera wrote:
| This one had 1m of diameter, so didn't manage to reach the
| ground. And by very far most of the ones that get close to Earth
| have less than 30m of diameter.
|
| But the problem of late discovery are the ones that are (far?)
| bigger than this ones, the ones that manage to reach the ground
| in sizes much bigger than a pebble. Are we detecting all the
| dangerous ones (and little less dangerous but big enough), and
| with enough anticipation? Had been in recent times surprises of
| big enough asteroids passing close enough?
|
| I suppose that in the end, we are playing with odds. It didn't
| happened for long enough, most that get close is harmless, and I
| suppose that if there are some harder to be detected (i.e.
| darker/low reflective ones?) they should not be the majority. But
| from time to time we have events that reminds us the bet we are
| playing.
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