NASA accurately predicted the impact of the asteroid

Astronomers were able to predict exactly where and when small asteroid It struck the atmosphere over the Norwegian Sea before disintegrating on March 11, 2022.

Two hours before the asteroid collided, K. Sarneczky of the Piszkésteto Observatory in northern Hungary first reported observations of a small 2022 EB5 object to the Minor Planet Center, the internationally recognized clearinghouse for measuring the location of small celestial bodies. The object was posted on the Minor Planet Center’s NEO confirmation page to be flagged for additional observations that would confirm that it asteroid previously unknown.

.’s ‘Detective’ Impact Risk Assessment System is NASA Take these first measurements to calculate the trajectory 2022 AD 5. Once Scout determined that 2022 EB5 would hit Earth’s atmosphere, the system alerted the center for Things Near Earth (CNEOS) and . Planetary Defense Coordination Office NASA, and mark the object on the Scout webpage to notify the monitoring community of the nearby object.

They are maintained by CNEOS in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA In Southern California, Scout automatically searches the Minor Planet Center database for potential new impacts in the near term. CNEOS calculates all known orbits of near-Earth asteroids to improve impact risk assessments in support of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

“Scouts only had 14 observations over a 40-minute period from one observatory to work with when they first identified the object as a collider,” he said. “We were able to pinpoint potential collision sites, which initially ranged from western Greenland to the coast of Norway.” David Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that developed the Scouts, said in a statement. “As more observatories track the asteroid, our calculations of its path and impact site are becoming more accurate.”

with great precision

The scouts decided that 2022 AD 5 It will enter the atmosphere southwest of Jan Mayen, a Norwegian island about 470 kilometers off the east coast of Greenland and northeastern Iceland. At 22:23 UTC, 2022 AD 5 The atmosphere hit as Scout predicted, and infrasound detectors confirmed that the impact occurred at the expected time.

of notes asteroid With its approach to the ground and the energy measured by infrasound detectors at the time of impact, it is estimated 2022 was EB5 The size is about 2 meters. little ones asteroids Of this size it becomes bright enough to be detected only in the last few hours before impact (or before it came very close to Earth). They are much smaller than things NASA Tasks of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office for detection and warning.

Small asteroids like 2022 AD 5 “They are quite numerous and affect the atmosphere a lot, about every 10 months,” said Paul Chodas, CNEOS director at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But very few of them asteroids They were already detected in space and were widely observed before the impact, mainly because they were so faint until the last few hours, and the survey telescope has to look at the right place in the sky at the right time to be detected.”

One asteroid A larger one with a potentially dangerous impact will be discovered far from Earth. Goal NASA is tracking it asteroids And calculating their paths to get many years’ notice of the potential impact should one be identified. But this realistic event with a very small asteroid allowed the planetary defense community to exercise the capabilities and gave some confidence that CNEOS’ impact prediction models are very capable of reporting the potential impact response of a larger object.

2022 AD 5 It is the fifth small asteroid to be discovered in space before it hit the Earth’s atmosphere. The first asteroid discovered and tracked long before it hit Earth was 2008 TC3, which entered the atmosphere over Sudan and disintegrated in October 2008. This 4-meter-wide asteroid scattered hundreds of small meteorites over the Nubian Desert. As surveys become more complex and sensitive, more of these harmless objects will be detected before they enter the atmosphere. (Europress)

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