As the Earth travels in its orbit around the Sun it collides with objects called meteoroids traveling through space. These tiny members of the solar system range in size from dust grains to objects a meter in diameter.By becoming part of the GMN’s network , your data will help to discover and document meteor showers, aid in identifying the parent cometary objects, and in some cases help to identify locations to search for meteorites.
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331E-350-Asteroid Defense
In 2013 a 56 foot diameter space rock exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia releasing the energy of 450 kt of TNT and filled local hospitals with some of the 1,500 people who were injured. Fortunately no one died. In 1908 a 200 ft diameter meteor exploded over a largely unpopulated region at Tunguska, Siberia knocking down trees over a 750 square mile area. If it had hit over a populated area it could have caused a million casualties. The approximately 250 people in the USA that NASA has working on asteroid detection and ways of mitigating the effects of an asteroid impact have plenty to do. We still have to locate and track about a hundred very large asteroids which could produce global climate change. Further, there are approximately 14,500 undiscovered slightly smaller ones which could cause a hurricane sized footprint damage areas to land areas on our planet. Fortunately it is extremely unlikely that any but one of the smallest space rocks will hit the Earth in the next 100 years.
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843-Possible Impactor
On 27 December 2024 the Atlas group in Chile discovered an object now known as 2024 YR4 which appeared to have a significant chance of impacting Earth 22 December of 2032. The most recent data indicates the chance that 2024 YR4 impact Earth is about 1 in 25,000. These data indicate our moon has about a 1 in 700 chance to be impacted by this space rock. Even so astronomers are preparing for 2028 when 2024 YR4 willagain come within the range of our instruments. Current data indicates 2024 YR4 will miss the Moon by less than 1000 miles on 2032 December 22 giving astronauts there a Merry Christmas.
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330E-349-Big and Fast
I was observing with the Catalina Sky Survey 60 inch telescope on Mt Lemmon, Arizona when a fast moving object appeared on a set of four images of the same area of the night sky. After I sent the discovery observations to the Minor Planet Center this new object was observed by telescopes in Arizona, Germany , South Bohemia in the Czech Republic , Chile, Pennsylvania , Italy, Hungary, and France. 2017 FE101's unusual path about our Sun is inclined by 53 degrees to the plane where the planets and most of the rest of the asteroids are located. In September of 2016 it was not observed by humans as it streaked by at an amazing 22 miles per second. Once every 125,000 years or so a 5 football field sized asteroid like 2017 FE101 collides with our planet producing a crater 4 or 5 miles in diameter, inflicts damage over a hurricane sized foot print on the Earth's surface, and in some cases throws up enough debris into the atmosphere to produce global climate change. Since on its current path, 2017 FE101 can't come closer than about 21 times the moon's distance from us , this very large space rock is not currently classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid. Rest assured that my team the Catalina Sky Survey and asteroid hunters world wide will keep track of 2017 FE101 as it comes near to Mars and Earth to make sure that its path does not change to make it a threat to our home planet.
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842-Tesla Recovered
My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Hydra with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona when a fast moving unknown point of light passed through a set of his images.After Greg reported his observations to the Minor Planet Center for the next 10 days it was tracked by observatories in Arizona, Italy, Hawaii, Australia, and Argentina. Citizen scientist H. A. Güler analyzed these data. The Minor Planet Center published the discovery of the near Earth asteroid 2018 CN41. The discovery was deleted when the object turned out to be a Falcon Heavy Rocket Upper stage with a Tesla roadster attached.
A real "Science Snack" for anyone who is interested in the extraterrestrial.Dr. Al Grauer is a member of the Catalina Sky Survey which has led the world in near Earth asteroid discoveries for 17 of the past 19 years.The music is "Eternity" by John Lyell.Astronomy Asteroids Space NASA Comets Earth Impact Aliens
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