China discovers potentially dangerous asteroid

5 months ago

^{( December, 02, 2023; https://www.tasnimnews.com/ )}

China discovers potentially dangerous asteroid

There are asteroids that we still do not know about and every time a potentially dangerous one is discovered, as Chinese astronomers recently discovered, they have discovered a potentially dangerous asteroid called 2023 WX1, it has an estimated diameter of 170 m and its orbit approximates it to about 6.2 million km from the Earth.

For an asteroid to be considered potentially dangerous, it must be at least 140 m in diameter and cross the Earth's orbit at less than 7 and a half million kilometers. These are the two basic criteria. There are some more criteria, but basically they are those two.

This one that the Chinese have discovered meets the requirements, which does not mean that it is an imminent threat, at least not now or in the next 100 years, but this discovery helps us to see that there are still asteroids to be discovered and that some of the that remain to be discovered can cause us a lot of harm.

It is an issue that must improve planetary defense and also improve the detection of asteroids.

Discovered on November 18, the celestial bodies were detected by the Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST), operational since September 2023 in northwest China's Qinghai Province. The Minor Planet Center, under the International Astronomical Union, officially confirmed the findings, designating the asteroids as 2023 WX1 and 2023 WB2.

2023 WX1, with an estimated diameter of 170 meters, falls under the category of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, as it possesses an "Earth Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance of 0.0416 astronomical units," equivalent to 6.22 million km, astronomers highlighted in a statement on Wednesday.

If you want to read the full note here the link.

hive-148441 science opinion link asteroid danger defense news neoxian creativecoin

0.000

1 comments

@gamemapmaker 61

5 months ago (Edited)

not only are there "still" many asteroids to be found, but there are a lot of asteroids out there. and a lot of them we can't see until they're close enough to the earth, and which upon if discovered we won't be able to do anything about them - when they arrive from the direction of the sun, the sun's luminosity takes away our ability to see them coming, only when they're already here do we see them, and if we do see them, there's no time to do anything about them.

what's more disturbing is that every year the earth passes twice through a meteor stream. a meteor stream which we haven't detected all asteroids in it. asteroids big enough to cause an almost civilization-wiping event.

one of these asteroids from this meteor stream hit the earth about 12 thousand years ago, and some propose that it's what cause the end of the ice age, and ending a past, global civilisation we aren't aware of. the meteor, having hit the polar cap, melted the ice-covered north of the planet ending the ice age.

so i agree with you, more observations need to be made, from the planet's surface but also from orbit, and an asteroid defense system be at the top of every governments' list of defense priorities.

0.000