[Time sensitive but remove breaking news nexus]
An asteroid with the potential to harm thousands of Earthlings was detected just two days before it passed by Earth:
A smallish asteroid zoomed past Earth this morning (Jan. 9), just two days after scientists first spotted the space rock. The asteroid, known as 2017 AG13, flew by our planet at just half the distance from Earth to the moon today at 7:47 a.m. EST (1247 GMT). (On average, the moon lies about 239,000 miles, or 385,000 kilometers, from Earth.) You can learn more about today's flyby in this video of asteroid 2017 AG13 from Slooh.com, which includes details on the space rock from Slooh Community Observatory astronomer Eric Edelman.
2017 AG13 is thought to be between 36 and 111 feet (11 to 34 meters) wide, according to astronomers at the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For perspective, the object that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013, injuring more than 1,000 people, was thought to be about 65 feet (20 m) wide.
See also: NASA Formalizes Planetary Defense Coordination Office to Track Asteroids
NASA and FEMA Conduct Asteroid Threat Response Exercise
NASA Office to Coordinate Asteroid Detection, Hazard Mitigation
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NASA has launched a Planetary Defense Coordination Office to reorganize its approach to asteroid detection and response:
NASA has formalized its ongoing program for detecting and tracking near-Earth objects (NEOs) as the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). The office remains within NASA's Planetary Science Division, in the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The office will be responsible for supervision of all NASA-funded projects to find and characterize asteroids and comets that pass near Earth's orbit around the sun. It will also take a leading role in coordinating interagency and intergovernmental efforts in response to any potential impact threats.
More than 13,500 near-Earth objects of all sizes have been discovered to date -- more than 95 percent of them since NASA-funded surveys began in 1998. About 1,500 NEOs are now detected each year.
"Asteroid detection, tracking and defense of our planet is something that NASA, its interagency partners, and the global community take very seriously," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "While there are no known impact threats at this time, the 2013 Chelyabinsk super-fireball and the recent 'Halloween Asteroid' close approach remind us of why we need to remain vigilant and keep our eyes to the sky."
NASA has been engaged in worldwide planning for planetary defense for some time, and this office will improve and expand on those efforts, working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies and departments.
The move follows a 2014 audit of NASA's asteroid detection activities that found a lack of "oversight, objectives, and established milestones".
There's no need to panic; NASA and FEMA have a plan to respond to a potential asteroid collision:
It's a scary scenario: an asteroid headed for Earth, just four years away from slamming into our home planet. It may be too short a span to plan an asteroid-deflection mission, but it's long enough to present very different challenges from those of a more typical crisis, like a hurricane or earthquake.
NASA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) came together Oct. 25 to plan a response to such a hypothetical event. In a "tabletop exercise," a kind of ongoing simulation, the two agencies tested how they would work together to evaluate the threat, prevent panic and protect as many people as possible from the deadly collision.
"It's not a matter of if, but when, we will deal with such a situation," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's Science Mission Directorate's new associate administrator, said in a statement. "But unlike any other time in our history, we now have the ability to respond to an impact threat through continued observations, predictions, response planning and mitigation."
Also at JPL.
CNET reports that two asteroids, 2017 FU102 and 2017 FT102, passed the Earth on 2 April and 3 April.
The near-Earth asteroid 2017 FU102 was discovered by the Mt. Lemmon Survey in Arizona (USA) on 29 March 2017. Today (April 2, 2017), it will have a very close, but safe encounter with the Earth (about 0.6 times the mean distance of the moon).
[...] this ~10 meters large rock will reach its minimum distance from us of 143,000 miles (230,000 km).
The other object, 2017 FT102, is smaller and its approach to the Earth was at a greater distance. It was also discovered on 29 March.
[By comparison, the Chelyabinsk meteor was estimated to be 20 meters in diameter. --Ed.]
2012 TC4 has passed by Earth:
2012 TC4 is estimated to be 45 to 100 feet (15 to 30 meters) in size. Orbit prediction experts say the asteroid poses no risk of impact with Earth. Nonetheless, its close approach to Earth is an opportunity to test the ability of a growing global observing network to communicate and coordinate their optical and radar observations in a real scenario.
This asteroid was discovered by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) on Hawaii back in 2012. Pan-STARRS conducts a near-Earth object (NEO) survey funded by NASA's NEO Observations Program, a key element of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. However, 2012 TC4 traveled out of the range of asteroid-tracking telescopes shortly after it was discovered.
Based on the observations they were able to make in 2012, asteroid trackers predicted that it should come back into view in the fall of 2017. Observers with the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory were the first to recapture 2012 TC4, in late July 2017, using one of their large 8-meter aperture telescopes. Since then, observers around the world have been tracking the object as it approaches Earth and reporting their observations to the Minor Planet Center.
This "test" of what has become a global asteroid-impact early-warning system is a volunteer project, conceived and organized by NASA-funded asteroid observers and supported by the NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). As explained by Michael Kelley, program scientist and NASA PDCO lead for the TC4 observation campaign, "Asteroid trackers are using this flyby to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking network, assessing our capability to work together in response to finding a potential real asteroid-impact threat."
Previously: NASA Formalizes Planetary Defense Coordination Office to Track Asteroids
NASA and FEMA Conduct Asteroid Threat Response Exercise
Surprise Flyby of Asteroid on January 9, 2017
NASA to Redirect an Asteroid's Moon With Kinetic Impact
Asteroid 2012 TC4 Will Pass Close to Earth on October 12th
4.4 Kilometer Asteroid Safely Passes by Earth (two moons discovered)
(Score: 3, Touché) by driven on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:21AM
Nice - mainstream news reports potential killer asteroid _after_ it's flown by. Guess they don't want to panick the unwashed masses.
I see that watchers.news [watchers.news] reported it yesterday.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:42AM
> Guess they don't want to panick the unwashed masses.
Or... it literally wasn't on their radar. They aren't omniscient and once it was detected it was immediately known that the trajectory made it harmless.
So not really big news.
(Score: 2, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:59AM
Don't worry, ISIS will claim it, Trump will tweet about the surveillance agency's incompetence, and then it will be the only topic on the news for 24 hours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:27AM
Is it realistic to detect objects that small with enough warning time to evacuate the target zone?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:32AM
I believe there are some newer missions going up in the next 5 yeara that will improve our detection of smaller rocks.
One of the currently running missions is WISE/NEO-WISE.
- takyon
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Weasley on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:47AM
It's getting better as time goes on. We're discovering ever smaller and smaller asteroids as time goes on. We could be doing more though. Last time I was still paying attention to the minor planet scene (about 5 or 6 years ago) everyone was saying the two telescope projects LSST and Pan-Starrs were going to go a long way to finding these much smaller objects. LSST is still under construction I believe and Pan-Starrs has been having funding issues after only getting one of it's four telescopes operational.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:18AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @05:34AM
I wonder how much global cooling from the impact ejecta into the atmosphere would be. We'd almost certainly be observing some stunning sunsets/rises.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @01:12AM
It's known as a Trump. Is it still there?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @06:12AM
Hopefully, a really big one will hit the eastern US soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @11:45AM
A "really big one" will have major global effects.... Let's say, global warming won't be an issue any more.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday January 10 2017, @03:55PM
Hey, there's a lot of us living here who aren't orange assholes.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday January 10 2017, @11:40AM
Flash? In 2017?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:01PM
It could be this unlisted YouTube video [youtube.com] I found here [cnet.com].
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday January 10 2017, @12:21PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves