Recently an Asteroid barely missed Earth... and Nobody saw it Coming
An asteroid came streaming past Earth, closer to us than our moon less than a month ago and not NASA, not our military saw it coming, or failed to let the American public know.
On 1-15-16 or 1-16-16, depending on where you live, a 460 feet (140 meters) wide space rock called asteroid 2011 AG5, "'Very quickly, very nearby', has close shave with Earth" Indeed, it came within 100,000 km (60,000 miles) of Earth, passing between the Earth and the Moon undetected, less than a quarter of the distance between Earth and Moon.
Last year, on August 28, 2016, Earth barely escaped being struck by a newly-discovered asteroid named 2017 AG13 and there have been numerous near misses, one of which was recent, when an asteroid barely missed earth while we were sleeping. It passed us at less than half the distance from our moon. That's pretty close. So how big does an asteroid have to be to do some real damage if it would hit earth? Scientists say that if an asteroid of only 500 miles diameter were to hit earth, it would be what they call an "Extinction Event". It would not only kill every form of life on our plane, it would make earth uninhabitable for many years to come. According to the experts, this has happened 6 times already in our planet's history. Below I have included an excellent video simulation of what the impact of an asteroid that size would look like. This video went viral and with 17,505,157 views to date is by far the most popular videos dealing with an asteroid impacting earth.
According to a space.com article, Big Asteroid's Chances of Hitting Earth in 2040 Overblown, NASA Says. The article explains how a space rock, called asteroid 2011 AG5, is about 460 feet (140 meters) wide and circles the sun on a path between the orbits of Mars and Venus. Astronomers discovered it on Jan. 8, 2011 using the 60-inch Cassegrain reflector telescope on Mount Lemmon north of Tucson, Ariz., with some projections suggesting the odds of an Earth impact are 1 in 625.
So how come an asteroid barely missed Earth, while being either almost virtually undetected or unreported until it was damn near right on top of us not but a few weeks ago?
I don't know which is worse, neither our space agency nor our military detecting the asteroid or our government and media not telling us. Tom Retterbush [email protected] Tuesday, 1-24-2016 6:45 PM San Antonio, Texas, USA Sources & Resources Big Asteroid's Chances of Hitting Earth in 2040 Overblown, NASA Says Doomsday Asteroid Goes Undetected, Narrowly Misses Earth Asteroid Almost Collided With Earth While You Were Sleeping Asteroid Animated GIF |
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