Car-sized asteroid just made the closest fly-by of Earth on record

A car-sized asteroid just made the closest-known approach to Earth without actually colliding with the planet. And researchers didn't even know about it until hours after it had already passed.

Asteroid 2020 QG, formerly known as ZTFoDxQ, zoomed past Earth on Sunday at 12:08 a.m. EDT, getting as close as 1,830 miles away. It marks the closest asteroid flyby ever recorded in which the object actually survived, according to NASA.

For comparison, the International Space Station is 254 miles away.

Car-sized asteroid just made the closest fly-by of Earth on record

And this in China.

A huge fireball has reportedly exploded over Shandong Province, China turning the midnight sky into day according to eyewitness accounts.

The Aug. 16th, event has been deemed the brightest fireball in years and exploded over the atmosphere of the city of Linyi The flash from the meteor was so bright that the night turned into day for miles around.

The sound from the explosion was reportedly so strong that it shook buildings in the region. “The meteor illuminated the whole earth and shook the landscape with a loud sound,” reports CMMO staff member Zhou Kun.

Huge fireball turns midnight sky into day over China, Shakes buildings

Does this play into it somewhere?

This vast, developing phenomenon, called the South Atlantic Anomaly, has intrigued and concerned scientists for years, and perhaps none more so than NASA researchers. The space agency's satellites and spacecraft are particularly vulnerable to the weakened magnetic field strength within the anomaly, and the resulting exposure to charged particles from the Sun.

The South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) – likened by NASA to a 'dent' in Earth's magnetic field, or a kind of 'pothole in space' – generally doesn't affect life on Earth, but the same can't be said for orbital spacecraft (including the International Space Station), which pass directly through the anomaly as they loop around the planet at low-Earth orbit altitudes.

During these encounters, the reduced magnetic field strength inside the anomaly means technological systems onboard satellites can short-circuit and malfunction if they become struck by high-energy protons emanating from the Sun.

NASA Is Tracking a Vast, Growing Anomaly in Earth's Magnetic Field

Maybe the lock downs really are because of a debris field that is traveling though our solar system and/or impending pole shift?

dude...the timing of this .....

draggin little ones with it......a buddy of mine thinks we are due a rough showering of em ....if a main one shows....

a reply to: LookingAtMars

I'd bet they have figured out the orbit of it and are tracing it back.....may be more on the way.

a reply to: LookingAtMars
It was probably just campaigning

too close....picturing Dallas to Seattle on a globe.....flip that distance up on end......

a reply to: Vasa Croe

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Could be. It would explain the mask, getting people familiar with lock downs and stocking up on TP.

And getting people used to riots is going on too, it looks like.

Almost all that we get little or no warning on, come from the direction of the Sun.
Little ones will always surprise us, but extremely dangerous, if they are big.

We need to step up our surveillance technology.

Presently the only thing we can do is compute the impact. We could save lives if we knew one was going to hit a populated area and also if one was going to impact the ocean, as Tsunami warnings could be issued.

We would need months of warning in order to nudge one, if we could indeed do such a thing.

a reply to: LookingAtMars

If something like this hit, how big a bang would it make ?

originally posted by: Neal13
a reply to: LookingAtMars

If something like this hit, how big a bang would it make ?

It's about a 1/4 the size of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, so maybe a small localized boom if it were to explode in an air burst, but most likely just the best shooting star you've ever seen, if you were to have seen it.

originally posted by: Vector99

originally posted by: Neal13
a reply to: LookingAtMars

If something like this hit, how big a bang would it make ?

It's about a 1/4 the size of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, so maybe a small localized boom if it were to explode in an air burst, but most likely just the best shooting star you've ever seen, if you were to have seen it.

Right. And just to add, if it did break up (like a fireball bollide) rather than airburst (like the Chelyabinsk event), and pieces of it survive to the ground without burning up first, those pieces would likely have been slowed down by the atmosphere enough that they would not have made a huge impact crater -- although even airbursts like Chelyabinsk might have still had pieces survive to the ground.

But in general, small pieces of meteorite from common bollides are moving at only terminal velocities (say about 200 mph or less) when they hit the ground, even if the asteroid they broke from was moving at 30,000+ mph when it hit the atmosphere.

Here is the damage done by the Peekskill Meteorite in New York State in 1992. I, along with thousands of others in at least five states, was lucky enough to have actually witnessed the fireball from this event as it flew over Pennsylvania. It still remains one of the few meteorites found than can be traced to an observed fireball event in the sky. It damaged a car, and would have likely just dented the ground if the car was not there; but it would not have been moving fast enough to have left a huge crater:

[If memory serves, I think I remember reading that this picture is a recreation. I know the car is the actual car and the damage is the actual damage, but I'm not sure if that's the actual meteorite. However, if it is a recreation, I think it is supposed to be a faithful one]

Peekskill Meteorite - Wikipedia

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
a reply to: LookingAtMars

I'd bet they have figured out the orbit of it and are tracing it back.....may be more on the way.

Yes!
A COVID cure could be on the horizon!

originally posted by: LookingAtMars
Maybe the lock downs really are because of a debris field that is traveling though our solar system and/or impending pole shift?

It makes no sense, people would be safer outside in case a meteor hit than inside their homes.

And a pole shift makes even less sense, unless you are talking about a magnetic pole shift.

I enjoy me some space, and daily I take a look at Space Weather on this site there is a chart for near earth orbit items.

As I said more or less buzz in daily. Well this chart daily has been getting additions in the red. I’m not a paid space rock hunter, but my spidey sense has me thinking this increase will only become more prominent as we approach Sept 1st as a known near earth orbit rock floats by at 0.3 LD but I feel theres many more coming with it that we aren’t seeing. I hope not, but then again just bought my kid a scope would be a helluva show!!!

SaneThinking

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Very interesting. What could this mean?

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Can you imagine being woken up in the middle of the night to the noise of that, only to go out and find a meteorite took out a chunk of your car? Wonder if that falls under collision coverage or not...

a reply to: LookingAtMars

1 car sized object flying passed earth

It's okay guys. NASA was too busy renaming black holes and siamese twins galaxies to not be "offensive" they missed a near earth collision. I'm sure they'll get the next one.

originally posted by: jjkenobi
It's okay guys. NASA was too busy renaming black holes and siamese twins galaxies to not be "offensive" they missed a near earth collision. I'm sure they'll get the next one.

Priorities first man. What if some rogue, yet unnamed, black hole threatened our little Milky Way Galaxy...

I'll tell ya what. It would be chaos! Riots everywhere, governments overturned, famine, pestilence...

Oh wait....

Just kidding... But yeah, expanding our knowledge of the universe isn't gonna do our civilization much good if we can't protect ourselves from natural disasters...

But I guess they use satellites for all sorts of things now, detecting forest fires, tsunami waves etc...

I wonder what is involved to boost the resolution and coverage of these near earth, potentially oncoming objects...

a reply to: LookingAtMars

Maybe the lock downs really are because of a debris field that is traveling though our solar system and/or impending pole shift?

Yep. I'm sure that's it!

Thank you for the answer, if I’m honest I’m disappointed... 🤩 a reply to: Vector99