Strange asteroids flew by the Earth and NASA took pictures

NASA’s giant radar in the remote Mojave Desert has imaged some impressive asteroids — including a 1-mile-wide behemoth — as they pass through our planet’s neighborhood.

Fortunately, there are no known asteroids that could potentially hit Earth for more than a century, and the probability of the largest class of asteroids (like the one below) hitting Earth in the next thousand years is extremely low. Still, these images provide planetary scientists with valuable information about what’s out there and how to prepare should a truly menacing space rock come our way.

“Photos or it didn’t happen!” NASA posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The first image below shows the mile-wide (1.5 kilometer) asteroid 2011 UL21 as it flew by at a distance of 4.1 million miles (6.6 million kilometers) on June 27. 17 times the distance from the moon.

And it turns out this asteroid wasn’t alone. A smaller moon orbits it 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) away.

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“About two-thirds of asteroids of this size are thought to be binary systems, and their discovery is particularly important because we can use measurements of their relative positions to estimate their relative orbits, masses and densities, providing key information about how they may have formed, Lance Benner, chief scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement.

Another image reveals an impressively detailed view of the 500-foot-wide (150-meter-wide) asteroid 2024 MK, which bounced some 184,000 miles (295,000 kilometers) from Earth two days later on June 29 (that’s closer than the Moon). , which is about 238,900 miles away). “This was an extraordinary opportunity to explore the physical properties and obtain detailed images of a near-Earth asteroid,” Benner said.

“This was an extraordinary opportunity to explore the physical properties and obtain detailed images of a near-Earth asteroid.”

A 500-foot-wide asteroid would pose a serious risk to Earthlings if it landed in a populated area. A much smaller rock, about 100 to 170 feet in diameter, could create an explosion large enough to destroy Kansas City. That’s why NASA is proactively preparing to avert such a threat whenever one might come our way.

All three asteroids were captured by NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar, a 230-foot-wide (70-meter) radio antenna near Barstow, California. NASA scientists sent radio waves at objects and the reflected signals bounced back.

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Asteroid Impact Risks

Here are today’s general risks from both small and very large asteroids or comets. Importantly, even relatively small rocks are still a threat, as demonstrated by the surprising 17-meter rock that exploded over Russia in 2013, shattering people’s windows.

• About 100 tons of dust and sand particles fall through the earth’s atmosphere every day, which burn up immediately.

• Every year, on average, a “car-sized asteroid” passes through our sky and explodes, NASA explains.

• Impacts by objects about 460 feet in diameter (140 meters wide) occur every 10,000 to 20,000 years.

• A “dinosaur-killing” impact from a rock half a mile in diameter or larger takes place on a timescale of 100 million years.