A small asteroid collided with Earth over Iceland last Friday – just two hours after it was spotted by an astronomer.
The space rock, named 2022 EB5, is thought to have mostly burned up in our planet’s atmosphere, but even if it hit the surface, it would do almost no harm because it was only 3 meters wide, about half that size. the size of a giraffe.
Some people in Iceland reported hearing a rumble or seeing a flash of light around the time EB5 2022 was hurtling across the sky at 11 miles per second (18.5 km/s) between Greenland and Norway.
No traces of meteorites have yet been found, but the International Meteor Organization is looking for witnesses who may have seen something.
Prior to the impact, which occurred in the atmosphere north of Iceland at 2122 GMT (4:22 pm ET) on Friday, March 11, the space rock was the fifth asteroid to be discovered prior to hitting Earth.
Discovery: A small asteroid collided with Earth over Iceland last Friday, just two hours after it was spotted (pictured) by Hungarian astronomer Christian Sarnecki.
Christian Sarnecki works at the station, which is part of the Konkoli Observatory near Budapest.
Explanation: difference between asteroid, meteorite and other space rocks
An asteroid is a large piece of rock left over from collisions or the early solar system. Most of them are located between Mars and Jupiter in the Main Belt.
A comet is a rock covered in ice, methane, and other compounds. Their orbits take them much farther from the solar system.
A meteor is what astronomers call a flash of light in the atmosphere as debris burns up.
This debris itself is known as a meteoroid. Most of them are so small that they evaporate in the atmosphere.
If any of these meteoroids reach the Earth, it is called a meteorite.
Meteors, meteoroids and meteorites are usually formed from asteroids and comets.
For example, if the Earth passes through the tail of a comet, most of the debris burns up in the atmosphere, forming a meteor shower.
The first, 2008 TC3, was an 80-tonne, 13-foot (4.1-meter) wide object that exploded over the Nubian desert in Sudan in October 2008. Later, about 600 meteorites were recovered from the asteroid.
In 2014, a near-Earth asteroid called 2014 AA crashed into Earth’s atmosphere over Venezuela, and 2018 LA crashed four years later and left fragments of debris near the border of Botswana and South Africa.
Two years ago, MO 2019 also struck, the fourth asteroid observed prior to hitting Earth, causing a harmless 5 kilotonne explosion off the southern coast of Puerto Rico.
The last asteroid was discovered just two hours before it hit Earth’s atmosphere, when it was spotted by Hungarian astronomer Kristian Sarnecki, who works at a station that is part of the Konkoli Observatory near Budapest.
According to Weizmann Institute of Science astronomer Dr. David Polisuk, who is also on NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission to try to deflect the massive space rock, it has not been previously seen due to its size.
“It was a tiny stone. It reflects only a little bit of sunlight – it’s hard to identify,” he said.
“The blow did no harm, it fell into the sea between Norway and Iceland. However, imagine if it had crashed a few hours earlier over Russia.
“In the context of the ongoing crisis, would Russia identify it as an asteroid or as a missile and return fire with its missiles?”
On Friday, orbital modeling expert Tony Dunn tweeted: “A few hours ago, the newly discovered asteroid 2022 EB5 collided with Earth near Iceland at a speed of 18.5 km/s. This asteroid was too small to cause damage.
The last major asteroid impact occurred in 2013, when a small object about 19 meters wide exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia.
It entered the Earth’s atmosphere with an energy equivalent to 500,000 tons of TNT, circling the globe twice in a shock wave that caused extensive damage and injured more than 1,600 people.
The fireball hit the Earth at 41,600 miles per hour and most of it fell into a lake called Chebarkul.
Asteroids are considered one of the most dangerous natural disasters the planet can experience, especially since there is currently no way to stop them.
According to a study by the Davidson Institute of Science, the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute of Israel, an asteroid over 460 feet (140 meters) wide would release at least 1,000 times the energy released by the first atomic bomb if it hit Earth. science.
A 3,280-foot-wide (1 km) asteroid — similar to asteroid 138971 (2001 CB21) that passed Earth in early March — could cause worldwide annihilation, but even smaller asteroids can wreak havoc.
That is why NASA is undertaking a mission to study the possibility of changing the course of an asteroid by colliding with a space probe.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test DART mission was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California last November and is expected to reach its target, a moon of the minor planet Dimorphos, around the end of September this year.
Most asteroids can usually be identified with the many powerful telescopes available to astronomers.
Influence! When 2022 EB5 hit Earth just north of Iceland this morning, it was the fifth asteroid to be discovered before hitting Earth. pic.twitter.com/kYsQ40uuFq
— Tony Dunn (@tony873004) March 12, 2022
The asteroid, named 2022 EB5, is believed to have mostly burned up in our planet’s atmosphere. This is what the Meteosat satellite, owned by the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, looked like.
Some people in Iceland reported hearing a rumble or seeing a flash of light around the time the 2022 EB5 was hurtling across the sky at 11 miles per second (18.5 km/s) between Greenland and Norway.
On Friday, orbital modeling expert Tony Dunn tweeted: “A few hours ago, the newly discovered asteroid 2022 EB5 collided with Earth near Iceland at a speed of 18.5 km/s. This asteroid was too small to cause damage.
However, some asteroids can “sneak up” on us thanks to a quirk of the Earth’s rotation that makes them appear to be barely moving, making them difficult to detect.
It was a warning to NASA-funded experts who were investigating how telescopes nearly missed a 328-foot-wide asteroid that came within 43,500 miles of Earth back in 2019.
The space rock, dubbed “2019 OK”, was the first object of its size to come this close to our planet since 1908, but it was spotted just 24 hours before its closest approach.
The team determined that the reason was that it was moving towards us in such a way that the rotation of the Earth counteracted its movement through the night sky.
So for early warning systems like Pan-STARRS1 at Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii, 2019 OK looked stationary, so the automatic detection software didn’t run.
In fact, up to half of the asteroids approaching Earth from the danger zone east of the “opposition” are likely to experience periods of this apparent slowdown, experts say.
No images of asteroid EB5 2022 have been released, but it would be similar to this image of a fireball from a meteor that hit Earth on January 21, 1999.
Some asteroids can “sneak up” on us thanks to a quirk of the Earth’s rotation that makes them appear to be barely moving, making them difficult to detect.
An asteroid is said to be in opposition when its position in the night sky places it along a line that crosses both the Earth and the Sun.
This means that half of these asteroids are also currently difficult to detect, and computerized telescopes will need to be upgraded to account for this effect.
But while EB5 2022 didn’t leave much of a mark on the planet, more asteroids are heading towards Earth.
There are several more due today, including 2022 DX2, 2022 DR3, 2018 GY, 2022 ES3, and 2022 EO4.
They are all very small, ranging from 31 feet (9.6 meters) to 232 feet (71 meters) wide, and according to NASA’s asteroid tracking system, they are not predicted to hit Earth.
However, one of them, the 2022 ES3, will come close to the rest and is predicted to travel around 207,000 miles (334,000 km).
It’s still far away, but closer to Earth than the Moon.
A live stream of his flyby tonight will be available online through the Virtual Telescope Project starting at 1830 GMT (1330 ET).
The space rock is estimated to be between 31 feet (9.6 meters) and 72 feet (22 meters) wide, which is the size of the Chelyabinsk asteroid at its maximum impact.
CHELYABINSK METEOR UBLOK WHAT WAS IT?
A meteor that swept over the southern Urals in February 2013 was the largest meteor strike recorded in more than a century since the 1908 Tunguska event.
More than 1,600 people were injured as a result of the shock wave from the explosion, which is estimated to have the power of 20 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, which landed near Chelyabinsk.
A fireball 18 meters in diameter crashed into the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 41,600 miles per hour.
Most of the meteorite fell into a local lake called Chebarkul.
In addition to the latest find, after the February 15 incident, scientists have already found more than 12 items in Chebarkul Lake. However, only five of them turned out to be real.
What did they find in meteorites?
Analysis of recovered Chelyabinsk meteorites has revealed an unusual form of jadeite buried within glassy materials known as impact veins, which form after rock falls, melts, and resolidifies.
By calculating the rate at which the jadeite would solidify, the team was able to determine that the asteroid formed after the impact.
Jadeite, which is one of the minerals in jade gemstone, only forms under extreme pressure and high temperature.
A form of jadeite found in the Chelyabinsk meteorites indicates that the asteroid’s parent body collided with another asteroid at least 150 meters (490 ft) in diameter.