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Anyone else concerned that a comet this big and this close to earth was only discovered on March 27? IMO, I think this is evidence we’ll most likely never have

Anyone else concerned that a comet this big and this close to earth was only discovered on March 27? IMO, I think this is evidence we’ll most likely never have more than a few months notice of something hurtling towards us regardless even if its going to destroy life on earth. A few months isn’t much time.

projektfu 6y ago
Close? As in 0.69AU, more than half the distance to the Sun? However, it's true that these objects that spend most of their long orbits outside of Neptune's orbit are going to be hard to detect until they enter the near solar system. Luckily, most of these objects are also inclined well away from the ecliptic, and so their probability of an interaction is low. The closest this object could ever get to Earth on its orbit is 0.36AU.
LinuxBender 6y ago
Of course. There is not nearly as much funding into watching for these as there needs to be. Moving them off course requires knowing far in advance. I would be more concerned about Apophis [1] for known objects. It's orbit may be tugged on by earth on the next pass, increasing chances of impact 2 passes from now. Each pass is only 7 years apart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis