An asteroid estimated to be as long as the Brooklyn Bridge is tall made its close access to Earth today .
The quad rock’n’roll , dubbed2013 MD8 , measured around 38 to 86 meters ( 126 to 282 feet ) and dash by Earth at 15.1 lunar distances , traveling at 13.6 kilometers per 2nd ( 30,418 mi per hour ) , according to astatementreleased byNASA ’s Center for Near - Earth Object Studies . Though large , this picky asteroid was n’t expected to cause any harm to our family planet – but what would we have done if it were on a track towards Earth ?
first , most asteroids and belittled meteorites incinerate up once they overtake through our atmosphere , but pieces of outer space detritus dooccasionallycollide with Earth without consequence , often going unnoticed . For those that may , NASA has a team of scientist tasked with detecting and tag potentially risky near - Earth object ( NEOs ) – asteroid that have a predicted minimum approach of less than 7.4 million kilometer ( 4.6 million miles ) and a diameter greater than 140 meters ( 460 foot ) .
NASA ’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office ( PDCO ) is task with ensuring the early detection of potentially hazardous object . These are asteroids and comet whose orbits may bring them to within 0.05 Astronomical Units of Earth and are large enough to gain the major planet ’s surface – greater than 30 to 50 meters ( 100 to 160 foot ) – in real - lifeArmageddonfashion ( RIP Harry S. Stamper ) . So far , they ’ve discover 95 percent of the jazz catalog of over 15,000 NEOs at a rate of 1,500 each class , close to half of which are prominent than 140 metre ( 460 foot ) in size of it .
If PDCO find an asteroid at - risk of causing a harmful impact , the organisation would first pass over its orbital course to predict if and when it might jar with Earth . If potentially dangerous , they wouldlead a missionto take the target by either separate it up or deflecting it . This work may be more authoritative than ever as a studypublishedearlier this year found that the turn of asteroid colliding with the Earth and Moon has increased by up to three - fold up over the past 290 million years .
Deflection strategy are take at change the asteroid ’s orbit enough so that it would miss Earth . This could be done by either using a ballistic capsule to exchange its somberness , employing optical maser extirpation in rescript to vaporize the space rock ( yes , that ’s a real thing ) to change its course , or by using a technique called energising impingement , which sends one or more ballistic capsule into the asteroid to crusade it away .
As a last - ditch effort , nuclear deflection could be used to soften up or deflect an asteroid .
