by Bob Walsh
A few days ago the earth was almost destroyed. Sort of. But not really.
A
previously unnoticed asteroid, 2022EBS, was spotted just a few hours
before it hit earth. This is the fifth time such a thing has happened
since we have been keeping track.
The
asteroid was about the size of a residential refrigerator (unless you
are Nancy Pelosi, in which case it was a small refrigerator). It was
spotted on March 11 by the Piszkesteto Observatory in Hungary. The
observatory notified the NASA JPL NEO (near earth objects) study center
of their find. They quickly determined that the object was too small to
be a significant hazard and that it would enter the earth's atmosphere
near an obscure Norwegian island in about two hours. They were right.
They got it right with a total of 14 observations over a period of 40
minutes.
NASA is actually
(supposedly) testing a planetary defense system to deal with asteroid
threats to earth. I hope that if the real deal ever comes along we have
more than 2 hours warning. Otherwise we will probably be seriously
screwed.
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