Earth gets a rush of weekend asteroid visitors

reply to post by FireballStorm

It could just be that we have a better knowledge of how to look now, and more people are interested so more are reporting.

Already addressed that in the OP.

Originally posted by sc1981
There's just too many asteroids whizzing towards earth. I mean if it was a common event in the past for an asteroid or asteroids to be hurtling towards our planet I'm sure they would've found those too right? They did have all these powerful telescopes back say 5, 10 yrs ago.

No they wouldn't have found them. We didn't have the technology. For example - WISE which only became active in late 2009:

By October 2010, over 33,500 new asteroids and comets were discovered, and nearly 154,000 solar system objects were observed by WISE.[25] Out of this total on that date, 136 new NEA, PHA, & Comets were discovered.[26] Out of these, 19 were new potentially hazardous asteroids, celestial objects both more likely to hit Earth and cause significant destruction (not to be confused with the more common but less dangerous Near Earth object (NEO)).[26] By Oct 2010, there were 1,151 known PHA, including those found by WISE.[27]

Source: wikipedia

Originally posted by magma
Do people really want to know that an asteroid is going to destroy their city shortly before it does?

I find that somewhat disturbing.

If it is a day before and I have a chance to move my family to safety, then yes I would.

reply to post by whatnext21


This is actually really neat to look at, thank you for posting this! Makes me feel a little bit better that I can actually see what's going on out there, so to speak.

Does anyone know why it supposedly wasn't trackable? Is this due to some sort of blind spot in our near earth object tracking ability?
Assuming a potential impact was imminent? What is the official policy regarding early warning of the public?

Originally posted by Shirak
Does anyone know why it supposedly wasn't trackable? Is this due to some sort of blind spot in our near earth object tracking ability?

It was relatively small by asteroid standards. This means it was not reflecting much light, making it very hard to spot, especially when it was more than a day or two away from us.

Originally posted by Shirak
Assuming a potential impact was imminent? What is the official policy regarding early warning of the public?

That would probably depend which country you were in. Either way, many amateurs search the sky for asteroids, so we would probably hear about a possible impact regardless of any policy. Anyone keen enough can buy a telescope and look for asteroids, so it would be impossible to cover up, if that's where your question was leading to.

Ah ok that makes sense my assumption was that radar was used to track these.
So it has to do with the reflective properties and angle in relation to available light reflected?

Yes we've had these same telescopes for yrs now. Not including the ones we have in space. So I'm guessing there hasn't been this many asteroids coming towards earth basically all at the same before. At least not in our lifetimes. I mean I'm no astronomer but something is taking place that isn't the norm. More and more meteors more and more asteroids more and more solar flares. What's next?

Originally posted by sc1981
Yes we've had these same telescopes for yrs now. Not including the ones we have in space. So I'm guessing there hasn't been this many asteroids coming towards earth basically all at the same before. At least not in our lifetimes. I mean I'm no astronomer but something is taking place that isn't the norm. More and more meteors more and more asteroids more and more solar flares. What's next?

It's because of new technology, as I said in previous posts. WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), is just a single example of this, and it spotted 33,500 asteroids and comets (mostly asteroids) between January 2010 and October 2010.

LINEAR (Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research) is another example, having discovered 231,082 new objects between 2005 and 2011.

The increase in new discoveries over the years can be seen in this simulation:


Note how the population of discovered asteroids jumps from around 150, 000 to well over 500, 000 between 2001 and 2012.

You have to understand that in the past, discovering asteroids was a painfully slow process. Yes we had big telescopes, but we did not have dedicated automated detectors like LINEAR and WISE.

Also note how the asteroid orbit's are represented in the simulation - they go round and round (the Sun), and they have been going round and round like that for long before they were discovered. They didn't just somehow "appear out of thin space"!

There is no evidence for there being more asteroids, meteors/fireballs, or solar flares, than there were before.

There's also NEAT. Near Earth Asteroid Tracking. Which began in the early 90's I believe. Which was created to track and identify and track 94 percent of the asteroids that come near earth and that are also in our solar system. As a matter of fact in 2029 there will be an asteroid that comes so close to earth that if your in the right place you'll actually be able to see it with the naked eye. And if this asteroid takes a certain path it will impact earth 7 yrs later. In fact the closest passing of an asteroid by earth was in 1996 in which it came only 280,000 miles of earth. It was discovered only 4 days before it was set to pass by earth. That just goes to show that its harder to locate and track asteroids than what ppl think. But now we have better technology, better telescopes to find and track these asteroids. So like I said all the asteroids that are coming at earth are not common. Yes I know there are some that are tracked that travel near us towards mars and the sun and vice versa. But the ones that are coming towards earth like they are being aimed and shot out of a cannon at us are not common place ppl. So therefore I am saying there will be an increase of these events. Including more meteors impacting earth. Whether it be exploding in our atmosphere or actually being big enough to stay intact and crash into the earth. And its just a matter of time before an asteroid actually impacts our planet. And these days seem as good as any for that impact to occur.

Well, one thing is for sure.

The media knows exactly what to play on to make sure people freak out. And it knows how to withhold just enough so that when people find out for themselves, they are even more freaked out.

It's not time yet for the big event. Not yet. The big event happens SUDDENLY. These events are not going to just get increasingly crazier and crazier naturally. Fear is their tactic. People are indeed paying more attention right now.

That being said, people are still not taking the warnings for what they really are.

But also, the warning is not to cause you to fear and to be stupid and to stock pile and build shelters and prepare a Godless future world. All of you that are freaking out in that way are not paying attention.

There will be harsher legislation put into place. These fears will cause people to willingly give up more rights, whether knowingly or pork-bellied, and the government will be able to enforce stricter and more ridiculous laws.

That is the purpose of the hype.

Much worse things, like the slaughtering of hundreds of people a day in other parts of the world, is constantly taking place. But the media shows you a cute kitten and then a huge asteroid with the face of a monster.

There is nothing special here; the lamest of the lame can see this. Why can't you see?

The big event is going to happen suddenly. You can't prepare for it except for to prepare spiritually.

And people will become afraid anyway. It's supposed to happen, that's the point. I am only making the observation for any who might be here that have the ability to understand what is happening; there are some to whom it is given to understand -- and the message to those is "It's okay. Don't worry. Stop judging yourself so harshly. Come back to Me and let me be your Judge."

Originally posted by sc1981
There's also NEAT. Near Earth Asteroid Tracking. Which began in the early 90's I believe. Which was created to track and identify and track 94 percent of the asteroids that come near earth and that are also in our solar system. As a matter of fact in 2029 there will be an asteroid that comes so close to earth that if your in the right place you'll actually be able to see it with the naked eye. And if this asteroid takes a certain path it will impact earth 7 yrs later. In fact the closest passing of an asteroid by earth was in 1996 in which it came only 280,000 miles of earth. It was discovered only 4 days before it was set to pass by earth. That just goes to show that its harder to locate and track asteroids than what ppl think. But now we have better technology, better telescopes to find and track these asteroids. So like I said all the asteroids that are coming at earth are not common. Yes I know there are some that are tracked that travel near us towards mars and the sun and vice versa. But the ones that are coming towards earth like they are being aimed and shot out of a cannon at us are not common place ppl. So therefore I am saying there will be an increase of these events. Including more meteors impacting earth. Whether it be exploding in our atmosphere or actually being big enough to stay intact and crash into the earth. And its just a matter of time before an asteroid actually impacts our planet. And these days seem as good as any for that impact to occur.

You forgot the one on Feburary 15, 2012 DA14 that just buzzed the earth at 17,000 miles. Which is closer than some of our satellites orbit. I'm still trying to figure out if the Russian fireball is related to that.