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<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA conducted a new tabletop simulation of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/potentially-hazardous-asteroids-fly-by-earth-this-week-watch-live-2024-6">discovering a large asteroid headed for Earth</a>.</li><li>Experts feared Congress wouldn't fund a mission to an asteroid with a 72% chance of impacting Earth.</li></ul><p>NASA recently brought together about 100 experts to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-simulated-asteroid-couldnt-stop-impact-europe-2021-5">pretend that an asteroid was heading for Earth</a>.</p><p>The tabletop <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-impact-simulations-difficult-to-stop-2021-5">simulation presented a hypothetical scenario</a> in which cities like Dallas, Washington, DC, and Madrid were at risk of a large asteroid impact.</p><p>"A <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-driver-asks-nasa-save-earth-from-world-ending-asteroids-2023-3">large asteroid impact</a> is potentially the only natural disaster humanity has the technology to predict years in advance and take action to prevent," Lindley Johnson, a NASA planetary defense officer emeritus, said in a press release.</p><p>But it wasn't clear that they could prevent such a catastrophe — even with 14 years to figure it out.</p><p>The simulation revealed that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/moon-missions-why-astronauts-have-not-returned-2018-7">technology wasn't the problem</a> that could ultimately doom a city, region, or entire country. It was politics.</p><div type="image" title="Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the Capitol on December 12, 2023." height="1500" width="2000" msid="111347083" hostid="261"></div><p>"I know what I would prefer [to do], but Congress will tell us to wait," one participant said of their asteroid-response plan, in a selection of anonymized comments in NASA's summary of the exercise, published on June 20.</p><p>"The most important item of the morning was the discussion involving the political nature of the decision-making," another participant said.</p><h2 id="fff0e374-634e-421c-bed3-007449857a08">Congress may not move fast enough</h2><p>NASA has conducted nearly a dozen tabletop simulations since 2013. This one happened in May and included participants from the US State Department, FEMA, and the space agencies of Europe, the UK, Japan, and Canada.</p><div type="image" title="large conference room with long desks full of people in suits sitting at laptops and looking at a large presentation screen with a person at a podium presenting" height="900" width="1634" msid="111347084" hostid="261"></div><p>Past exercises showed that, in order to save the world, NASA would need at least <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">five years' notice that an asteroid was headed toward us</a>, maybe even 10 years.</p><p>This time the simulators learned that, even when they had plenty of time, they might not be able to launch their preferred anti-asteroid offensive.</p><p>That's because they didn't think Congress would approve funding for a critical space mission to study the asteroid "unless impact became certain," NASA's summary said.</p><p>A major part of the simulation was figuring out how to impress the "seriousness" of the situation upon Congress and other leadership, Johnson said.</p><p>What's more, the 14-year timeline spanned multiple budget cycles and presidential elections. At any of those junctures, the president, Congress, or NASA's own leadership could change priorities and disrupt the asteroid plan.</p><h2 id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">The most likely incoming asteroid scenario</h2><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">Here are the hypothetical conditions the participants were given in this year's exercise: Scientists have determined a 72% chance of this asteroid impacting Earth in 14 years. It could strike anywhere across a swath of North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">The asteroid's size was unclear. It could be anywhere from 60 to 800 meters (half a mile) wide — possibly big enough to devastate an entire country.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">All that uncertainty made this "a very realistic scenario," Richard Binzel, a planetary scientist at MIT who specializes in potentially hazardous asteroids, but did not participate in the simulation, told Business Insider.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">"In fact, it's the most likely type of scenario we will face, where an asteroid is discovered and we have limited information," Binzel said.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">Options for preventing an asteroid impact include shooting the asteroid with lasers, launching a nuclear bomb at it, or simply smacking a space probe into it to nudge it away from Earth.</p><p>NASA has tested one of those options in a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-crashes-dart-spacecraft-into-asteroid-to-test-planetary-defense-2022-9">mission that punched an asteroid</a> and dramatically changed its path in 2022, just to prove the technique could work.</p><div type="image" title="sequence of images showing asteroid from a distance then close up then video cutting out" height="1000" width="2000" msid="111347087" hostid="261"></div><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">In the simulation, experts wanted more information to understand their anti-asteroid options.</p><p id="16c29872-b78b-4870-bb8a-e51b843db37f">Unfortunately, the fictional space rock was about to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">pass behind the sun and disappear</a> from view for seven months. To avoid wasting precious time, scientists would have to send a spacecraft to the asteroid to learn more about it.</p><p>That's where they feared politics would get in the way. Participants weren't sure Congress would fund the mission unless the asteroid was a certain threat — not a 72% chance of threat.</p><p>So far, NASA has not discovered any large asteroids on track to impact Earth.</p><p>But scientists have identified fewer than 11,000 near-Earth asteroids that are at least 140 meters (460 feet) wide — big enough to crush a city. They believe there are 15,000 of them in our vicinity, meaning more than a quarter of city killers remain undiscovered.</p><h2 id="8dbc0625-4426-4bc0-ba2d-99b4f3dc63a5">NASA could plan a mission just in case</h2><p>Binzel says NASA could get political and bureaucratic barriers out of the way now, before any asteroid threats are identified, by developing a reconnaissance mission to have on standby.</p><p>"It's an adult thing to do that can protect us from becoming surprised," he said.</p><p>The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine made a similar recommendation in its last decadal survey of planetary science priorities.</p><p>In that 2022 <a target="_blank" href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/resource/26522/interactive/">report</a>, the Academies said that NASA should "develop an approach for a rapid-response, flyby" spacecraft to closely study newly-discovered threats. That way, it could launch a reconnaissance mission in less than three years if it became necessary. The Academies also recommended a demonstration to practice reconnaissance on a real asteroid.</p><p>So why isn't NASA working on that right now?</p><p>"It's not in the budget," Binzel said.</p><p>First NASA has to make a proposal for such a mission, with a thumbs up from the White House, and then Congress would have to authorize and fund it.</p><p>"If there's an asteroid out there with our name on it, it's already there," Binzel said. "Fortunately, the chance in the next century or so is incredibly small. But it's not zero."</p>

NASA simulated an incoming asteroid impact, and the biggest roadblock to action was penny pinching

<ul class="summary-list"><li>On Thursday and Saturday, two different <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-threat-of-meteor-crashing-into-earth-is-bigger-than-you-think-2019-5">"potentially hazardous" asteroids</a> will fly by Earth.</li><li>The first is as big as a mountain, and the second will be one of the brightest in recent history.</li></ul><p>Two rare <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-visit-psyche-asteroid-worth-more-than-entire-world-economy-2023-10">asteroids</a> will zoom past Earth at close range this week, within just 42 hours of each other.</p><p>Due to their size and trajectory, both of these space rocks are labeled "potentially hazardous." But that doesn't mean they pose an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adam-driver-asks-nasa-save-earth-from-world-ending-asteroids-2023-3">immediate threat to Earth</a>.</p><p>In fact, both of them will safely fly by at thousands of miles per hour. There's a zero percent chance that either will collide with our planet, according to the European Space Agency.</p><p>Neither of these asteroids will be visible to the naked eye, but you may be able to spot them with a telescope or binoculars, Gianluca Masi, astrophysicist and founder of The Virtual Telescope Project, told Business Insider over email.</p><p>Or, you can watch them via livestreams hosted by The Virtual Telescope Project:</p><ul><li>Use <a target="_blank" href="https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/webtv/">this link</a> to watch Asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 streak past Earth on Thursday, June 27, starting at 4:00 p.m. ET.</li><li>And <a target="_blank" href="https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/2024/06/20/potentially-hazardous-asteroid-2024-mk-very-close-encounter-online-observation-29-june-2024/">this link</a> to watch Asteroid 2024 MK fly by on Saturday, June 29, starting at 5:00 p.m. ET.</li></ul><h2 id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">Mountain-sized Asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21</h2><div type="image" title="ESA infographic about Asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 and it's close approach on June 27 2024." height="1080" width="1920" msid="111295552" hostid="261"></div><p>Asteroid (415029) 2011 UL21 is one of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/details-from-the-chelyabinsk-meteor-2013-11">largest asteroids</a> to have recently passed near Earth, Masi wrote in a press statement.</p><p>With an estimated diameter of roughly 1.4 miles, this mountain-sized space rock is larger than 99% of all known <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-moon-asteroid-orbiting-sun-alongside-earth-astronomers-discover-2023-6">near-Earth objects</a>, according to the European Space Agency.</p><p id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">Asteroid 2011 UL21 falls into a class of space rocks known as "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-plan-alert-public-world-asteroid-strike-2024-2">planet killers</a>," which are at least 1.2 miles wide. If one crashed into Earth, it would cause damage on a continental scale, and potentially kick up enough dust to trigger significant climactic changes for many years, LiveScience <a target="_blank" href="https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/mountain-size-planet-killer-asteroid-will-make-a-close-approach-to-earth-this-week-and-you-can-watch-it-live">reported</a>.</p><p id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">The Chicxulub asteroid, for example, credited with the dinosaurs' demise was about 6.5 miles across and triggered global warming for an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap8525?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D71187586662918797870423820668119382806%7CMCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1719416200">estimated</a> 100,000 years after impact.</p><div type="image" title="An artist's illustration of a massive asteroid colliding with Earth" height="1414" width="2121" msid="111295553" hostid="261"></div><p id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">Luckily, 2011 UL21 won't be coming close enough to cause any concern on Thursday. It'll sneak by Earth at a safe distance of more than 4 million miles, which is 17 times farther than <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-moon-distance-edge-of-outer-space-2018-5">the distance between Earth and the moon</a>, Masi wrote.</p><p id="f7d4c781-e54b-4539-9212-0b088e744ec7">But this fly-by is noteworthy because 2011 UL21 will be among the top 10 largest asteroids to pass by Earth at close range in the last 125 years, he added.</p><h2 id="789dcbe3-2c95-457e-9dcd-ad0ac66ffd8e">Newly discovered Asteroid 2024 MK</h2><div type="image" title="ESA infographic about Asteroid 2024 MK and its close approach on June 29, 2024." height="1080" width="1920" msid="111295549" hostid="261"></div><p>Asteroid 2024 MK was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-sent-spaceship-near-dinkinesh-asteroid-discovered-second-baby-one-2023-11">first discovered</a> earlier this month, just 13 days before it will pass by Earth at remarkably close range, according to the European Space Agency.</p><p>It's much smaller than 2011 UL21, with an estimated diameter between 390 and 885 feet. That's roughly the length of one to 2.5 football fields.</p><div type="image" title="Gif map of Asteroid 2024 MK's close approach with Earth" height="669" width="800" msid="111295551" hostid="261"></div><p>But what this asteroid lacks in size, it should make up for in brightness. It will come within 184,000 miles of Earth, which is about 77% of the average distance between the Earth and the moon, Masi wrote.</p><p>It's close proximity will make it one of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amateur-astronomer-video-jupiter-bright-fireball-comet-asteroid-impact-2023-9">brightest objects</a> of its kind observed in recent history, he added.</p>

2 'potentially hazardous' asteroids will streak by Earth this week, one as big as a mountain. You can watch it live.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A giant "city killer" asteroid will safely shoot past Earth today traveling at 41,000 mph.</li><li>Its closest approach to Earth will be 1.77 million miles, over seven times the distance to the moon.</li></ul><p>NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has spotted a giant <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-predicts-exact-date-asteroid-hit-earth-atomic-bomb-bennu-2023-9">"city killer" asteroid</a> flying toward Earth. And this afternoon, it will reach its closest approach to our planet, about 1.77 million miles away.</p><p>For reference, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mind-boggling-nasa-photo-shows-moon-distance-from-earth-2022-10">the moon</a> is about 239,000 miles from Earth, so this asteroid will be 7.4 times as far from Earth as the moon is. </p><p>The speedy space rock is expected to be zipping along at about 41,000 mph and measures roughly 890 feet across, or roughly the size of a US football stadium, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroid-watch/next-five-approaches"><u>NASA</u></a>.</p><div type="image" title="View of a football stadium from above." height="2051" width="1461" msid="107369399" hostid="261" sizebytes="513156"></div><p>Experts sometimes call asteroids this size "city killers" because they're capable of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">destroying an entire city</a> if they collide with an inhabited part of Earth.</p><p>Still, this asteroid will be too small and far away to see without a telescope. </p><p>It will be about 10,000 times fainter than the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/type-be-vampire-stars-secret-helper-2023-11">faintest stars</a> visible to the naked eye, Gianluca Masi, an astrophysicist and the scientific director of the Virtual Telescope Project, told Business Insider over email.</p><p>But if you want to catch a glimpse of the asteroid as it whizzes by, you're in luck!</p><p>Masi and his colleagues will be recording the event live starting at 1 p.m. ET today. You can watch the livestream on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CtdiyL86JE&amp;ab_channel=TheVirtualTelescopeProject"><u>YouTube</u></a> or in the video below.</p><p>The livestream will track Asteroid 2008 OS7 as it flies by Earth. Viewers will be able to distinguish it as a tiny dot moving past other fixed tiny dots, aka stars, in the background. The livestream will last about 45 minutes, Masi said.</p><p>VTP has recorded other flybys like this, and it's "something always very fascinating to see," Masi told BI.</p><h2>About Asteroid 2008 OS7</h2><p>Asteroid 2008 OS7 orbits the sun every 962 days. After passing by Earth, it will continue along its oval-shaped path through our solar system.</p><p>Its oblong-shaped orbit means that each time the asteroid approaches Earth, its distance from our planet varies significantly.</p><p>For example, the website <a target="_blank" href="https://www.spacereference.org/asteroid/2008-os7"><u>Space Reference</u></a> estimates that upon its next close approach, in July 2037, it will be about 9.7 million miles from Earth.</p><h2>Potentially hazardous asteroids</h2><p>Asteroid 2008 OS7 is what <a target="_blank" href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/neo_groups.html"><u>NASA calls</u></a> a "potentially hazardous" asteroid because of its size and how close it flies past Earth.</p><p>An asteroid is considered potentially hazardous if it is at least 460 feet in diameter and orbits Earth within a distance of about 4.65 million miles.</p><p>Scientists have identified more than <a target="_blank" href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/totals.html"><u>34,000 near-Earth objects</u></a>. Just over 2,300 have been designated <a target="_blank" href="https://www.space.com/ai-finds-first-potentially-dangerous-asteroid">potentially hazardous</a>.</p><p>But NASA suspects there are many more out there that haven't been discovered. If a giant asteroid were on course to hit Earth, we'd need <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5#:~:text=NASA%20is%20developing%20a%20space%20telescope%20to%20track%20asteroids&amp;text=NASA%20is%20planning%20a%20mission,into%20Earth's%20orbit%20in%202026."><u>five to 10 years of warning</u></a> to destroy or deflect it.</p><p>NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/near-earth-object-surveyor"><u>Near-Earth Object Surveyor mission</u></a>, set to launch in September 2027. It would send an infrared space telescope into Earth's orbit to expand NASA's search for near-Earth objects that could threaten our planet.</p>

A football stadium-sized asteroid will blaze by Earth today. Here's how to watch the potentially hazardous 'city killer' live.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA sent a spacecraft flying by the Dinkinesh asteroid.</li><li>The agency discovered that Dinkinesh is actually a binary asteroid system.</li></ul><p>NASA sent a spacecraft flying by what it initially thought was one asteroid.</p><p>But the Lucy spacecraft returned images showing that the asteroid Dinkinesh is actually a binary asteroid system, meaning there are two asteroids orbiting a common center. In this case, the system features asteroids of different sizes — one much smaller than the other.</p><p>"Dinkinesh really did live up to its name; this is marvelous," Hal Levison, the principal investigator for Lucy who works at the Southwest Research Institute, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-lucy-spacecraft-discovers-2nd-asteroid-during-dinkinesh-flyby">said in a press release from NASA</a>. "When Lucy was originally selected for flight, we planned to fly by seven asteroids. With the addition of Dinkinesh, two Trojan moons, and now this satellite, we've turned it up to 11."</p><p>Lucy flew by the asteroid system at a speed of 10,000 miles per hour, NASA said. The researchers working on the spacecraft had suspected that Dinkinesh might be a binary pair because of the way its brightness changed with time. The images the spacecraft returned confirmed their theory, according to the news release.</p><p>Lucy's flight was intended to be a test of the spacecraft — and it passed with flying colors.</p><p>"This is an awesome series of images," Tom Kennedy, a guidance and navigation engineer at Lockheed Martin in Colorado, said in the news release. "They indicate that the terminal tracking system worked as intended, even when the universe presented us with a more difficult target than we expected."</p>

NASA sent a spaceship rocketing by an asteroid — and discovered the space rock has a little baby one dancing around it

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists think an asteroid could contain previously unknown elements. </li><li>Asteroid 33 Polyhymnia appears to be denser than the densest element in the Periodic Table. </li></ul><p>An <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-visit-psyche-asteroid-worth-more-than-entire-world-economy-2023-10">asteroid</a> in the solar system's asteroid belt is so dense that scientists believe it could contain elements never before seen on Earth, according to a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-04454-8">study</a> published in The European Physical Journal Plus in September. </p><p>All known chemical elements on Earth are documented in the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/this-very-cool-periodic-table-explains-how-we-use-all-the-elements-2016-11?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=referral">Periodic Table</a>. There are 118 elements that make up the Periodic Table, organized by their atomic number — the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/physics-atoms-empty-space-2016-9">number of protons</a> in the element's atomic nucleus.</p><p>Over the years, scientists have been jamming more protons into nuclei to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-periodic-element-names-2016-6">create new elements</a>. But how many protons you can ultimately pack into one space is a scientific mystery. Some experts argue the threshold is 164. </p><p>For their new study, researchers from the University of Arizona, suggest that asteroid 33 Polyhymnia might contain never-before-seen material that reaches that exact threshold.</p><p>They calculated what the density of an element with a whopping atomic number of 164 would be —  generally speaking, the higher the atomic number of an element, the denser it'll be, though there are definitely exceptions.</p><p>The researchers found that the density of an element with atomic number 164 was roughly the same density as what other experts have already measured for asteroid Polyhymnia.</p><p>It "would have a density between 36.0 and 68.4 g/cm<sup>3</sup>: a range that approaches the expected value for asteroid Polyhymnia," according to a <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/about-springer/media/research-news/all-english-research-news/statistical-method-recreates-the-history-of-a-long-abandoned-vil/26142538">press release</a>.</p><h2>The densest element on Earth can't compare</h2><p>Asteroid 33 Polyhymnia might be what's called a compact ultradense object, or CUDO. These objects are thought to have densities far greater than the density of anything on Earth and therefore contain elements scientists have yet to discover. </p><p>For example, the densest element on Earth, Osmium, contains 76 protons packed into each atomic nucleus. If the scientists' new calculations are correct, it would mean CUDOs like asteroid Polyhymnia could be made of material that contains elements with as many as 164 protons per atomic nucleus. </p><p>One of the study's authors, Jan Rafelski, said in the press release: "The idea that some of these might be stable enough to be obtained from within our solar system is an exciting one."</p>

Asteroid 33 Polyhymnia is so dense it may actually contain elements never before seen on Earth, according to a new study

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists have uncovered traces of what they think could be the world's largest asteroid impact. </li><li>The structure, hidden in the ground in Australia, is thought to be about 300 miles across.</li></ul><p>The world's largest <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-oldest-meteor-crater-australia-2020-1">asteroid impact</a>, 300 miles across, could be hidden in the Australian ground. </p><p>Scientists have been tracing "magnetic" and "gravity" patterns spreading out in circles from a point about 10 miles from Deniliquin in New South Wales, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meteor-australia-stardust-older-than-sun-2020-1">Australia</a>. </p><p>The structure, the scientists say, could be the remnants of an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-sizes-that-can-damage-cities-states-planet-2018-6">enormous asteroid impact</a> that hit the Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. </p><p>If confirmed, it would be the largest asteroid impact on record. </p><h2>The memory of the impact is hidden in the ground</h2><p>One would think finding the world's largest asteroid impact should be fairly easy. But the reality is very different. </p><p>It is true that asteroid impacts <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-evidence-suggests-the-worlds-largest-known-asteroid-impact-structure-is-buried-deep-in-southeast-australia-209593">create massive geological structures</a>.</p><p>The force of the impact is so strong it can bend the Earth's crust, creating ripples similar to those a rock makes when hitting a pond, Andrew Glickson, a paleo-geophysicist from the Australian Geological Survey Organization, said in a post in The Conversation August 10. </p><p>But if this impact happened, hundreds of millions of years of erosions would have erased most of the visible features of the event. </p><p>Still, scientists can look for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-struck-perfect-angle-to-doom-dinosaurs-study-2020-5">telltale signs</a> left behind, with a little patience, Glickson said.</p><p>Five years of ground surveys around the area of Deniquilin have uncovered "radial faults," circular fractures that radiate from a central structure, Glickson and his colleague Tony Yeates said in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040195122002487?via%3Dihub">a peer-reviewed paper</a> published last year.</p><p>These are accompanied by "small magnetic anomalies" around the center point. These were likely caused by molten rock oozing into the peaks and troughs left behind by the impact. </p><p>Glickson said this so-called Deniliquin structure "spans up to 520 kilometers in diameter" or about 300 miles.</p><p>That would be an impact bigger than any other documented on Earth. That includes the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-deepest-gold-mine-is-in-south-africa-2016-12?">Vredefort impact</a> structure in South Africa, which is thought to have been between 100 and 200 miles wide, and the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chicxulub-asteroid-impact-triggered-underwater-volcanic-eruptions-2018-2">Chicxulub impact</a>, about 90 miles across, which scientists believed triggered the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. </p><p>To confirm the finding, the scientists will aim to get physical evidence from the site itself. </p><p>"For proof of impact, we'll need to collect physical evidence of shock, which can only come from drilling deep into the structure," said Glickson in the post. </p><h2>The asteroid may have caused one of Earth's mass extinctions</h2><p>Before the scientists can drill into the site, it will be difficult to know when exactly this asteroid would have hit.</p><p>Glickson believes the impact happened when Australia was still part of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-continents-crystals-plate-tectonics-2017-1">Gondwana,</a> a supercontinent that broke off from Pangea and later turned into South America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica.</p><p>That would mean it would be at least 180 million years old, probably more. </p><p>"Specifically, I think it may have triggered what's called the Hirnantian glaciation stage, which lasted between 445.2 and 443.8 million years ago," Glickson said in the post. </p><p>This <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/signs-of-6th-mass-extinction-2019-3">mass extinction event</a> was caused by an ice age that wiped out <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825209001652">85% of the planet's species</a>, 350 million years before the dinosaurs were wiped out, Glickson said. </p><p>But the impact could be even older. Glickson said he could see it date back up to 514 million years. </p>

A mystery 300-mile wide formation lurking beneath Australia may be the largest asteroid impact crater on Earth

The 10 biggest asteroids that pose a threat to Earth in 2020

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/adam-driver-did-not-go-house-of-gucci-wrap-party-2022-1">Adam Driver</a> asked NASA how it would save Earth from an incoming asteroid.</li><li>No <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">city-killer asteroids</a> are known to be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/planet-killer-asteroid-could-threaten-earth-in-a-few-millennia-2022-10">a threat to Earth</a>, but NASA hasn't catalogued all of them.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.insider.com/adam-driver-said-son-hates-movies-wont-watch-new-film-2023-3">Adam Driver</a> sat down with NASA to talk about avoiding an asteroid apocalypse.</p><p>The actor is launching a new film, called "65," where he plays a space pilot who crash-lands on Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago, then discovers the approach of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dinosaur-fossil-from-day-extinction-asteroid-hit-earth-scientists-claim-2022-4">the asteroid which drove dinosaurs' extinction</a>.</p><p>"What if we found out that an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-nasa-dart-impacted-looks-like-comet-hubble-photo-reveals-2022-10">asteroid</a> like this were going to hit our planet today?" Driver asked in a video NASA posted last week.</p><p>Don't worry about such a large asteroid — an extinction-level space rock — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-heading-earth-bright-outshine-stars-scientists-c-2023-a32023-3">approaching Earth</a> anytime soon, NASA astronomer Kelly Fast was quick to clarify.</p><p>"Those large ones, most of them have been found. They're easier to spot. There are fewer of them," Fast, who manages NASA's near-Earth object observations, said in the video. "But there are asteroids still left to be found that aren't <em>that</em> large, but still are of a size that could do damage should they impact."</p><p>Specifically, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">NASA is on the hunt for asteroids</a> larger than 140 meters (460 feet) wide. Those are big enough to flatten a city. Congress had mandated that NASA identify and track 90% of those city-killers, to ensure their orbits aren't taking them on a collision course with Earth.</p><p>"If an asteroid were discovered that were going to impact Earth, NASA's role would be to inform planning, to give information about the asteroid, about where the impact would happen, about what the effects might be," Fast said.</p><p>The agency also has the ability to intervene and push such an asteroid away from our planet. Three NASA missions are filling the planetary-defense toolbelt.</p><h2>NASA can slam an asteroid with a spacecraft — and it already did</h2><div type="image" title="sequence of images showing asteroid from a distance then close up then video cutting out" height="1000" width="2000" msid="98951923" hostid="261" sizebytes="58056"></div><p>Driver's next question was about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-crashes-dart-spacecraft-into-asteroid-to-test-planetary-defense-2022-9">NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid</a> called Dimorphos last year, to see if that push could change its orbit around a larger asteroid.</p><p>It was a test of NASA's simplest option for a deadly asteroid: With enough years' notice, a probe could give the space rock enough of a nudge to change its orbit around the sun and take it off its collision course with Earth.</p><div type="image" title="LICIACube image showing the aftermath of the DART impact." height="1080" width="1080" msid="98951925" hostid="261" sizebytes="12896"></div><p>"Would that work? Could that be an effective, uh, means of saving the planet from an asteroid?" Driver asked.</p><p>It worked when DART did it. The spacecraft's impact altered Dimorphos's orbit by 33 minutes, pushing it closer to its parent asteroid.</p><div type="image" title="Infographic showing the effect of DART spacecraft impact on the orbit of asteroid Dimorphos" height="1520" width="2600" msid="98951926" hostid="261" sizebytes="109614"></div><p>Other options that scientists have pitched include shooting the asteroid with lasers, or launching a nuclear bomb at it. NASA hasn't tried either of those approaches.</p><p>"DART showed that we do have technology for diverting an asteroid in space, but there is still a lot left to be done," Fast said.</p><h2>NASA is studying and tracking down near-Earth asteroids</h2><p>Fast added that NASA's approach to any asteroid would depend on the asteroid's size and composition.</p><p>Another NASA mission, called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">Osiris-Rex, landed on the surface of an asteroid</a> in 2020 and scooped up its rocky space dust.</p><div type="image" title="osiris rex side by side skitch" height="1500" width="2000" msid="98951927" hostid="261" sizebytes="178566"></div><p>Those samples are set to return to Earth later this year, and they'll help scientists understand the composition of space rocks, and inform future study of any hazardous asteroids that may be discovered.</p><p>The third leg of NASA's asteroid-defense plan is a mission that Driver didn't ask about. It's a space telescope specifically designed for <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">tracking down city-killer asteroids</a>. It's called the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, or NEO Surveyor.</p><p>That mission would help NASA fulfill its Congressional mandate to catalogue those asteroids. That's crucial, because <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">NASA has to discover any incoming asteroid years before it impacts Earth</a>, so the agency has enough time to study it and make a plan.</p><div type="image" title="neocam asteroid hunter spacecraft discovery nasa jpl caltech" height="1476" width="1968" msid="98951928" hostid="261" sizebytes="169106"></div><p>The infrared telescope NEO Surveyor is currently in development, planned for launch in 2026.</p><p>Even though Driver and Fast didn't discuss that mission, the actor seemed impressed with NASA's efforts.</p><p>"Thank you for your work in keeping the planet safe from world-ending asteroids plummeting into our planet," Driver said.</p>

Adam Driver asked NASA how it plans to save Earth from world-ending asteroids

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Asteroid Bennu has a slim chance of hitting our planet on September 24, 2182, NASA said.</li><li>It would release as much energy as about 24 nuclear bombs, so NASA is keeping a close eye on it. </li></ul><p>What are you doing on September 24, 2182? You may want to clear your calendar because scientists think an asteroid may hit Earth. </p><p>NASA scientists are keeping a close eye on asteroid Bennu, a 1,610-foot-wide <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-sizes-that-can-damage-cities-states-planet-2018-6">cosmic object</a> that could smash into our planet.</p><p>If Bennu were to hit the Earth, it would slam into the surface at about seven miles per second. It is so big that it could release 1,400 megatons of energy, <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/details.html#?des=101955" target="_blank" rel="noopener">per a NASA calculation</a> — which is at least 24 times as powerful as the nuclear weapon, the Tsar Bomba. </p><p>Thankfully, the chances of this happening are very slim — about 1 in 2,700, <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-spacecraft-provides-insight-into-asteroid-bennus-future-orbit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">per a 2021 study</a>.</p><p>Still, NASA is interested enough in Bennu to launch a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-probe-returning-from-asteroid-with-2-oz-of-asteroid-space-rock-2021-5">seven-year-long mission</a> to study it, which is due to bring back a precious sample from the asteroid in a dramatic landing on Sunday.</p><p>This mission could help us better forecast the future of our cosmic neighbor, but it could also provide unprecedented insight into the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/video-earth-tectonic-plates-billion-years-2021-2">formation of the Earth</a>. </p><h2>Bennu is bigger than the Empire State Building</h2><p>Bennu belongs to a category of asteroids called "city-killers." That means that if it were to hit the Earth — the probability of which is zero until 2,100 and very small after that, per NASA — it would be powerful enough to flatten a large city. </p><div type="image" title="A animated gif shows a model of Bennu next to a picture of the Empire State Building and the Eiffel tower, both of which are about as tall as the asteroid is big." height="359" width="720" msid="103866263" hostid="261"></div><p>The diamond-shaped asteroid is no stranger to Earth's neighborhood. Its long orbit around the sun means it approaches the Earth about every six years.  But it usually keeps a polite distance from us — it's never come closer than about <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=Bennu&amp;view=OPC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3 million miles</a> from Earth.</p><p>As it makes its way around the solar system, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacecraft-asteroid-landing-osiris-rex-2020-10">Bennu's orbit</a> can change, and that's where it gets a little riskier. </p><p>To make its 2182 appointment with the Earth, Bennu will need to pass within a very small window in space — a "<a href="https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4921" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gravitational keyhole</a>" — in 2135. That would shift its orbit perfectly to line up with our planet.</p><p>But there's still a 99.96% chance it will miss us on that date. </p><h2>We need to know more about large Earth-bound asteroids</h2><p>Even though the risk is low, large asteroids near Earth need to be taken seriously. Of the ones we know, most pose <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/did-you-know" target="_blank" rel="noopener">little to no</a> risk to our planet.</p><p>But the concern is that these kinds of objects could be hiding from view, meaning NASA can only spot them moments before they hit.</p><div type="image" title="A animated gif shows Bennu from all sides as it is being rotated around. The diamond-shaped grey asteroid is covered in boulders." height="900" width="900" msid="103866265" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA estimates that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">60% of the city-killer-sized</a> asteroids that could come in proximity to Earth are unknown at this time, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/planet-killer-asteroid-could-threaten-earth-in-a-few-millennia-2022-10">even bigger rocks</a> could be hidden in the light of the sun, a known blindspot for observation from Earth. </p><p>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chelyabinsk-meteor-mystery-3-years-later-2016-2?jwsource=cl">Chelyabinsk incident</a> provided a stark reminder of this fact in 2013 when a house-sized asteroid unexpectedly appeared over the city before exploding, breaking windows, damaging buildings, and injuring more than 1,400 people.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid russia Chelyabinsk" height="3744" width="4992" msid="103866266" hostid="261"></div>That's why NASA has been working to improve its forecasting of so-called Near Earth Objects.<p>Studying an object like Bennu, which is easy to observe and comes close enough to Earth that we can send a mission there, is important for understanding more about these objects. </p><p>NASA's mission to Bennu, a probe called Osiris-Rex that was launched in 2016, could provide more clues about how asteroids sail in the cosmos. For instance, one of the mission's objectives is to understand how the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/did-you-know" target="_blank" rel="noopener">light from the sun,</a> as it is absorbed and re-radiated, could affect Bennu's orbit.</p><h2>Bennu could shed light on our planet's birth</h2><p>There's more to Bennu than its destructive potential, and that's what NASA is most interested in for Osiris-Rex.</p><p>Bennu was likely created at about the same time as our planet, about 4.5 billion years ago, <a href="https://beta.science.nasa.gov/mission/osiris-rex/osiris-rex-faq/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA said</a>.</p><p>Traces of what happened at that time have long been erased from our planet, under millions of years of erosion. But Bennu could still be carrying elements from then, frozen in time as it sails through the cosmos, per NASA.</p><p>That's why NASA is eagerly awaiting the return of its Osiris-Rex spacecraft, which is carrying a few ounces of precious dust collected from Bennu in 2020.</p><div type="image" title="OSIRIS REx collection" height="1312" width="1749" msid="103866269" hostid="261"></div><p>This little probe, which has been sailing back from Bennu since May 10, 2021, should deliver its payload, a capsule containing the precious sample, as it passes about 63,000 miles from the Earth in the early hours of Sunday morning. </p><p>The capsule is planned to fall back to Earth later Sunday morning, landing in Utah around 10:55 a.m. ET. </p>

NASA scientists calculated the exact date an asteroid could hit Earth with the force of at least 24 nuclear bombs. Thankfully, it's a long way off.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomer-discover-youngest-asteroid-pair-ever-in-our-solar-system-2022-2">Astronomers</a> discovered a "planet killer" asteroid that may pose a threat to Earth in future millennia.</li><li>The discovery highlights a dangerous blind spot: it's hard to see <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">anything coming from the direction of the sun</a>.</li></ul><p>Astronomers discovered a large <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-confirms-dart-probe-crash-moved-asteroid-2022-10">asteroid</a> nearby this year, on a trajectory that could take it dangerously close to our planet in the distant future.</p><p>The asteroid, called 2022 AP7, is about 1.5 kilometers wide — nearly one mile. That makes it a "planet killer," Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, said in a <a href="https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2226/">press release</a> announcing the discovery on Monday.</p><p>Although the rock isn't as big as the one that led to dinosaurs' extinction, it's big enough to wreak planet-wide destruction and potentially change life on Earth as we know it.</p><p>Thankfully, 2022 AP7 isn't headed for Earth anytime soon, especially not in the next century, according to researchers' calculations. </p><p>"Way down the line, in the next few thousand years, it could turn into a problem for our descendants," Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast who was not involved in the study, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/science/asteroid-planet-killer.html">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>But there could be other planet killer asteroids lurking unseen in the blind spot where 2022 AP7 was discovered: within the orbits of Earth and Venus, between us and the sun.</p><h2>The sun's glare could conceal dangerous asteroids</h2><div type="image" title="illustration of asteroid shadow with sun shining behind" height="720" width="1280" msid="95237774" hostid="261" sizebytes="31102"></div><p>In August 2020, an asteroid the size of a car passed closer to Earth than any known space rock had ever come without crashing. It missed our planet by about 1,830 miles.</p><p>Astronomers didn't know the space rock existed until about six hours <em>after</em> it whizzed by. Nobody saw it coming, because it was approaching from the direction of the sun.</p><p>Telescopes spot asteroids by detecting sunlight reflecting off of them. That makes it very difficult to spot asteroids located between Earth and the sun. The brilliant glare of our star — which is 109 times wider than Earth — easily drowns out the faint glint of a mile-wide asteroid. Plus, some asteroids aren't very reflective.</p><p>To find more asteroids in this blinding zone, Sheppard's team used a camera designed to detect dark energy, mounted on a telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.</p><p>They could only scan the near-sun sky during a 10-minute window at twilight, peering at the horizon just before the sun emerges. Sheppard's team was able to identify three previously unknown near-Earth asteroids, including 2022 AP7. The survey results were <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac8cff">published</a> in The Astronomical Journal on September 29.</p><p>"There are likely only a few [near-Earth asteroids] with similar sizes left to find," Sheppard said in the release.</p><p>He added that most of the undiscovered asteroids probably stay closer to the sun, rather than coming near Earth's orbit.</p><h2>NASA is making Armageddon plans</h2><div type="image" title="sequence of images showing asteroid from a distance then close up then video cutting out" height="1000" width="2000" msid="95237775" hostid="261" sizebytes="58056"></div><p>NASA is working on a game plan for the day scientists detect an asteroid on a true collision course with Earth. The agency just slammed a spacecraft into a distant asteroid and successfully changed that asteroid's orbit around a larger space rock.</p><p>That mission, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), was practice for striking any asteroid approaching Earth, giving it a nudge to steer it off course. No such asteroids have been identified, but NASA is preparing for the possibility of future discoveries.</p><p>However, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">scientists previously told Insider</a> that NASA would probably need about five to 10 years to build and launch a DART-like deflection mission for an asteroid that posed a threat to Earth. That means astronomers must identify asteroids long before they approach our planet.</p><p>NASA is slowly advancing a space telescope to track down more city killer asteroids in our cosmic neighborhood. That project, called the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-dart-mission-cant-protect-earth-without-surveilling-asteroids-2022-9">recently had its budget cut by more than $100 million</a>. It's set to launch as early as 2028.</p><div type="image" title="neocam asteroid hunter spacecraft discovery nasa jpl caltech" height="1712" width="1968" msid="95237776" hostid="261" sizebytes="205312"></div><p>The telescope is designed to help NASA fulfill a Congressional mandate to find and track 90% of all near-Earth objects 140 meters (460 feet) or larger in size. That's big enough to obliterate a city like New York. The goal was to find them by the end of 2020. Obviously, NASA is behind.</p><p>So far, NASA estimates it has only catalogued 40% of those city killers. NEO Surveyor would help spot the rest of them. That includes asteroids coming from the direction of the sun.</p>

'Planet killer' asteroid hidden by the sun may threaten Earth in a few thousand years

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/listen-bloop-of-meteor-falling-to-mars-nasa-insight-lander-2022-9">NASA</a> is about to slam a spacecraft into an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dinosaur-fossil-from-day-extinction-asteroid-hit-earth-scientists-claim-2022-4">asteroid</a> to nudge it into a new orbit.</li><li>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-launches-dart-probe-into-collision-course-with-asteroid-2021-11">Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)</a> is practice for deflecting an asteroid away from Earth.</li></ul><p>NASA is about to slam a spacecraft into an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomer-discover-youngest-asteroid-pair-ever-in-our-solar-system-2022-2">asteroid</a>, obliterating the probe and nudging the space rock.</p><p>The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is aiming for an asteroid called Dimorphos, which is orbiting a giant asteroid called Didymos. By crashing into it, NASA hopes to push the smaller space rock into a new orbit closer to its parent asteroid. The impact, scheduled for Monday, is practice for deflecting dangerous asteroids away from our planet.</p><div type="image" title="Infographic showing the effect of DART spacecraft impact on the orbit of asteroid Dimorphos" height="1520" width="2600" msid="94501281" hostid="261"></div><p>Dimorphos is 163 meters (535 feet) wide — big enough to obliterate a city like New York. That's no cause for concern, since it isn't on an Earth-bound trajectory, and DART won't change its path through the solar system. But that makes it perfect practice for one of the biggest threats in our cosmic neighborhood: city-killer asteroids, clocking in at 140 meters (460 feet) or larger.</p><p>Having a tried-and-true deflection method won't help protect Earth from asteroids if nobody sees them coming, though. Experts previously told Insider that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">NASA would need five to 10 years</a> to build and launch a customized mission to deflect an incoming asteroid. To date, scientists have only identified 40% of city-killer asteroids orbiting near Earth, NASA estimates. Nobody knows where the rest of them are, or where they're going.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid dimorphos edited next to rome Colosseum showing they are the same size" height="2418" width="2000" msid="94501283" hostid="261"></div><p>"Of course, you can't use any mitigation techniques unless you know where the asteroids are," Amy Mainzer, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, told Insider.</p><p>In 2005, Congress mandated that NASA catalogue 90% of those 140-meter-plus asteroids. Mainzer has been working on a space telescope called Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, which is designed to fulfill that goal.</p><p>"This is one of the long list of risks that are out there to life on our planet," Mainzer said. "It's something we should just go cross off our list of worries. And the way we do that, is we go look for the asteroids, in my opinion."</p><p>NEO Surveyor has made slow progress, though, and it just took another big hit.</p><p>At the beginning of 2022, the mission got an infusion of $143.2 million to propel it toward launch. But NASA has since rescinded $33 million of that budget for this year, according to Mainzer, and slashed the project's budget by $100 million for <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy23_nasa_budget_request_full_opt.pdf">2023</a>. NASA estimates that will delay the telescope at least two years, so it will launch in 2028 at the earliest.</p><p>"We are obviously disappointed about the budget cuts, because we know that it creates a less efficient project. It's going to make it cost more and take longer," Mainzer said.</p><h2>Smaller asteroids are already sneaking up on us</h2><p>Asteroids have already surprised humans a few times in recent years.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid russia Chelyabinsk" height="3744" width="5616" msid="94501284" hostid="261"></div><p>In 2013, a house-sized asteroid screamed into the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia, and exploded. The blast sent out a shock wave that broke windows, damaged buildings, and injured more than 1,400 people. No one on Earth saw it coming. That same day, a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/02/15/172080937/no-link-between-meteor-that-hurt-hundreds-and-asteroid-about-to-fly-by">larger asteroid</a> came within 17,000 miles of the planet.</p><p>Jim Bridenstine, who served as the Trump administration's NASA administrator, said in 2019 that the agency's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-threat-of-meteor-crashing-into-earth-is-bigger-than-you-think-2019-5">modeling</a> suggested an event like the Chelyabinsk meteor occurs about every 60 years.</p><p>But the Chelyabinsk rock was small — about 50 feet wide. In 2019, a 427-foot, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-flies-close-to-earth-surprising-scientists-2019-7">"city-killer" space rock</a> flew within 45,000 miles of Earth, and NASA had almost no warning about that either.</p><div type="image" title="people in winter coats gather around large dark rock wrapped in straps and rope" height="1665" width="2220" msid="94501285" hostid="261"></div><p>Then in 2020, an asteroid the size of a car passed closer to Earth than any known space rock had ever come without crashing. It missed our planet by about 1,830 miles. Astronomers didn't know the asteroid existed until about six hours after it whizzed by. Nobody saw it coming, because it was approaching from the direction of the sun.</p><p>Telescopes on the ground can only observe the sky at night, which means they miss almost everything that flies at us from the sun. NEO Surveyor, from its perch in Earth's orbit, would be able to spot such space rocks. Since it would use infrared light, it could also spot asteroids that are too dark for Earth-based telescopes.</p><h2>The asteroid-spying telescope is suffering further delays</h2><div type="image" title="neocam asteroid hunter spacecraft discovery nasa jpl caltech" height="1476" width="1968" msid="94501286" hostid="261"></div><p>Mainzer first submitted the idea for an asteroid-hunting space telescope in 2006. NASA declined to take it on as a mission, funding other projects instead. She submitted proposals in 2010 and 2015 as well, but the agency kept passing.</p><p>NEO Surveyor finally <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-telescope-to-detect-deadly-asteroids-2019-9">became an official NASA mission</a> in 2019. Then the project languished in what NASA calls "Phase A" — a stage focusing on design and technology development. Last year, NEO Surveyor passed a key review and moved into Phase B, allowing Mainzer and her team to start building prototypes and developing hardware and software.</p><p>Then Congress and President Joe Biden approved a budget of $143.2 million for the telescope in 2022 (later chopped to $110 million). That's a significant increase from the $28 million the mission received in 2021, and it allowed the team to make "significant" progress in all elements of the telescope's design, Mainzer said. But the agency's 2023 budget proposal allots just $40 million to the project. </p><p>Once in orbit, NEO Surveyor is expected to spend 10 years boosting NASA's catalogue from 40% of city-killing asteroids up to 90%. After that, researchers can move on to smaller classes of asteroid, like the one that shocked Chelyabinsk.</p><p>"If you do a good thorough search, you might find that there are no potentially hazardous objects on the impact trajectory. And that would be great," Mainzer said. "It's reasonably straightforward to go find out the answer, so we should go do that."</p><p>If the DART impact goes according to plan on Monday, NASA will be better equipped to divert any Earth-bound asteroid NEO Surveyor might discover.</p><p><em>September 23, 2022: This story has been updated to reflect the budget cut for NASA's Near-Earth Object Surveyor project.</em></p>

The asteroid NASA is about to strike poses no threat to Earth, but 60% of city-killer rocks fly under the radar

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-might-advance-asteroid-hunting-space-telescope-2021-5">NASA space telescope</a> could help <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">track down</a> 90% of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-impact-simulations-difficult-to-stop-2021-5">asteroids</a> big enough to crush New York.</li><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> is finally advancing the <keyword id="81842" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Telescope">telescope</keyword>, called NEO Surveyor, after years of passing it over.</li><li>By passing a key review, the telescope has escaped what one expert called "NASA mission limbo hell."</li></ul><p>NASA is finally moving forward with a <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> telescope that could spot <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">asteroids heading dangerously close to Earth</a>.</p><p>The Near-Earth Object Surveyor Mission - NEO Surveyor, for short - has passed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-might-advance-asteroid-hunting-space-telescope-2021-5">a key review</a>, and NASA announced Friday that it's moving it to the next stage of development. Now engineers can start building new parts for the telescope, thereby keeping the mission on track for a 2026 launch.</p><p>"I'm over the moon," Amy Mainzer, who leads the project, told Insider. "We are excited to do our part to help cross the asteroid-impact issue off the world's list of worries."</p><p>To protect the planet from an incoming asteroid, experts estimate they'd <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">need five to 10 years' warning</a> that a space rock was headed our way. Right now, an asteroid could easily approach Earth without anyone seeing it, since telescopes on the ground can only do limited surveillance.</p><p>"What you want to do is find them early, find them as early as possible - as in years, or even decades, before they pose a threat," Paul Chodas, the manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-might-advance-asteroid-hunting-space-telescope-2021-5">previously told Insider</a>. "The dinosaurs didn't have a space program, and look what happened to them. We have a space program. And given enough time, we can do something about this threat."</p><p>NEO Surveyor would help NASA catalogue nearby <keyword id="81841" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Asteroids">asteroids</keyword> and chart their paths through the solar system, so that someday - if necessary - humanity may have a shot at destroying or deflecting any space rocks on a collision path with Earth.</p><p>For years, work on this kind of infrared telescope had been caught in "NASA mission limbo hell," MIT astronomer Richard Binzel <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-might-advance-asteroid-hunting-space-telescope-2021-5">previously told Insider</a>. Now the project is finally moving forward.</p><h2>NASA needs a space telescope to defend Earth from city-crushing asteroids</h2><div type="image" title="asteroid earth fly by" height="2139" width="2852" msid="83450835" hostid="261"></div><p>Experts from around the world <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">practiced for a hypothetical asteroid strike</a> in April. It didn't go well.</p><p>At the Planetary Defense Conference, a group of 200 participants from about two dozen countries worked through a hypothetical scenario in which an asteroid was set to crash into Earth in six months. They determined that no existing technologies could stop the space rock, since the time frame was too short to launch a mission that could destroy or deflect an asteroid.</p><p>Without a space telescope like NEO Surveyor, it's very possible that an asteroid could sneak up on our planet like the one in the April simulation. It has already happened a few times.</p><p>In 2013, a house-sized asteroid screamed into the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia and exploded. The blast sent out a shock wave that broke windows, damaged buildings, and injured more than 1,400 people. No one on Earth saw it coming. That same day, a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/02/15/172080937/no-link-between-meteor-that-hurt-hundreds-and-asteroid-about-to-fly-by">larger asteroid</a> came within 17,000 miles of the planet.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid russia Chelyabinsk" height="3744" width="5616" msid="83450836" hostid="261"></div><p>Jim Bridenstine, who served as the Trump administration's NASA Administrator, said in 2019 that the agency's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-threat-of-meteor-crashing-into-earth-is-bigger-than-you-think-2019-5">modeling</a> suggests an event like the Chelyabinsk meteor occurs about every 60 years.</p><p>But the Chelyabinsk rock was small - about 50 feet wide. In 2019, a 427-foot, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-flies-close-to-earth-surprising-scientists-2019-7">"city-killer" space rock</a> flew within 45,000 miles of Earth, and NASA had almost no warning about that either.</p><p>Then last August, an asteroid the size of a car passed closer to Earth than any known space rock had ever come without crashing. It missed our planet by about 1,830 miles. Astronomers didn't know the asteroid existed until about six hours <em>after</em> it whizzed by. Nobody saw it coming, because it was approaching from the direction of the sun.</p><p>Telescopes on the ground can only observe the sky at night, which means they miss almost everything that flies at us from the sun. NEO Surveyor, from its perch in Earth's orbit, would be able to spot such space rocks. Since it would use infrared light, it could also spot asteroids that are too dark for Earth-based telescopes.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid belt vega" height="585" width="1041" msid="83450837" hostid="261"></div><p>Plans for this kind of space telescope have been in the works since 2005, when Congress mandated that NASA find and track 90% of all <keyword id="1821718" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="near-Earth-objects">near-Earth objects</keyword> 140 meters (460 feet) or larger in size. That's big enough to obliterate a city like New York.</p><p>The initial deadline was 2020. But NASA has only spotted about 40% of those objects so far. NEO Surveyor is designed to bring the agency up to its 90% goal within a decade of launch.</p><p>"Every day we wait is one day less that we have the information we need to make a response," said Binzel, who studies potentially hazardous asteroids. "What that means is, for now, we are relying on luck to keep us safe from major <keyword id="2929843" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid-impacts">asteroid impacts</keyword>. But luck is not a plan."</p><h2>The NEO Surveyor team is forging ahead - maybe with a budget boost</h2><p>Mainzer first submitted the idea for an asteroid-hunting space telescope in 2006. NASA declined to take it on as a mission, funding other projects instead. She submitted proposals in 2010 and 2015 as well, but the agency kept passing.</p><p>NEO Surveyor finally <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-space-telescope-to-detect-deadly-asteroids-2019-9">became an official NASA mission</a> in 2019. Since then, the project has been in what NASA calls "Phase A" - a stage focusing on design and technology development. Now that they're moving on to Phase B, Mainzer and her team can start building prototypes and developing hardware and software.</p><p>They could soon get a major influx of cash, too. NASA's budget request for 2022 allots <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2022_congressional_justification_nasa_budget_request.pdf">$197 million</a> for planetary defense, including $143 million for NEO Surveyor - though Congress must still approve it.</p><p>That would be a significant increase from the $28 million the mission received in 2021. NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen <a href="https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasas-new-neo-mission-will-substantially-reduce-time-to-find-hazardous-asteroids/">estimated</a> in 2019 that developing the telescope could cost about $500 to $600 million in total.</p><p>The budget request and Friday's Phase B approval are "double good <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> for citizens of planet Earth," Binzel said, though he added that now, "the ball in squarely in Congress' court."</p><p>"The clock is ticking," Mainzer said. "We really want to get off the ground as quickly as possible."</p><p><em>Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.</em></p>

You Searched For "asteroid meaning" and got 12 results

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