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747-sized asteroid skimmed by Earth, and scientists didn't see it coming
- silicaroach 5y agoFor the record the distance between Earth and Moon is about 384,000 km. So the asteroid came to within about 192,000 km of Earth. The real story is that it was not detected, not the distance.
- destitude 5y agoFrom an astronomical perspective that is EXTREMELY close call.
- ProjectArcturis 5y agoI thought the same thing. But, doing the math, given that an object passes within a circle around the earth with radius 192,000 km, there is a 1 in 900 chance that it hits the earth. That's uncomfortably high for me.
- andi999 5y agoI feel that. Although probably can multiple the chance by 50-100 to hit anything densely populated on earth.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- unanswered 5y ago> especially as they often tend to approach during the daytime when visibility is low due to the Sun's glare. I would really like to sit down with the journalist and find out how they think night and day works. This sentence fragment displays potentially multiple shocking misconceptions.
- kqr 5y agoIsn't it true that you see space better at night due to lack of sun, though?
- unanswered 5y agoThat is a true statement... which doesn't matter one jot when talking about objects coming from the direction of the sun.
- kqr 5y agoSure it does: things coming from the direction of the sun are occluded by our dear planet at night! So we have to see them at day.
- acheron 5y agoNobody goes to journalism school because they were good at science (or math).
- s1artibartfast 5y agoAn object coming from the direction of the sun will be perpetually on the day side of the Earth, despite the Earths daily rotation around its axis.
- unanswered 5y agoYes, that is one problem: > as they often tend to approach during the daytime I mean, yes this is technically true, as things which must by definition be approaching the daytime side of the earth "often tend" to approach that way. But the phrasing indicates the article author is not aware of this relationship. The other problem is that "during the daytime" is a meaningless concept when referring to the whole earth.
- EarthLaunch 5y agoAccording to this Impact Effects [0] graph, death count for an impact of that size could be around 30,000? 0: https://atlas.fallingstar.com/danger.php https://atlas.fallingstar.com/danger.php
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoTunguska was a 20m asteroid by comparison. A 747 is 70-80m.