Astronomers spotted an asteroid just a few hours before it hit Earth - there is a video
Miscellaneous / / April 05, 2023
For the sixth time in the history of observations, scientists managed to see a stone before the collision.
November 19, 2022 NASA Catalina Sky Survey discovered an asteroid called 2022 WJ1 is rapidly approaching Earth. Scientists have used a network of telescopes and radar to understand when and where it will fall. This was done almost four hours before the impact.
The first images of 2022 WJ1 were enough to calculate the flight path, and several monitoring programs collisions found that the probability of a rock falling somewhere on the North American continent is about 20%.
Subsequent observations allowed scientists to refine their predictions by specifying the time and location of the impact. Atmospheric entry occurred over Canadian territory in Southern Ontario - 2022 WJ1 swept across the sky in the form of a bright green fireball. This was captured on video.
The good news is that 2022 WJ1 was too small to cause any serious damage to the planet. But the discovery demonstrates that the world's methods of monitoring asteroids are improving, and this gives us a better chance to protect ourselves from falling celestial bodies that can cause significant damage.
“This remarkable event will provide clues about composition and strength which, when combined with telescopic measurements, will provide us an understanding of how small asteroids break up in the atmosphere, which is important knowledge for the planetary protection."
Peter Brown
astronomer and physicist at the University of Western Ontario
2022 WJ1 had a diameter of about one meter, making it the smallest asteroid observed to date before entering the atmosphere. The flaming fireball crashed, falling to Earth in smaller fragments, most of which were supposed to fall into the water of Lake Ontario.
The previous asteroids detected before the collision were 2008 TC3 about 4 meters in diameter, 2014 AA and 2018 LA with a diameter of 3 meters, 2019 MO - 6 meters, and 2022 EB5 - about 2 meters across.
Scientists have so far cataloged 30,656 near-Earth asteroids. Most of them are small enough and do not pose a big threat, and those that are of significant size should not approach our planet in the next century.
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