Terrifying Close Calls With Asteroids? Not Such A Big Deal
Posted by Justin on September 9th, 2010
Astronomers are chuckling to themselves after laypeople paying attention freaked out last week when two astroids swooped through Earth’s orbit, nearly missing our planet. While a double complete asteroid swipe is rare, the still scary idea of a single asteroid nearly destroying our lives happens, like, all the time.
In fact, with a rough estimate of 50 million unknown asteroids, a 33-foot-wide (10-meter) near-Earth object could pass harmlessly between Earth and the orbit of the moon every day, Johnson added. Such an asteroid might hit Earth’s atmosphere once every 10 years, but because of its small size, it would pose no substantial threat to the people or property below.
“They would certainly break up in Earth’s atmosphere, or we might get some meteorites on the ground,” Johnson said.
So, don’t worry so much. Or worry every day. Either way.
[Space]
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September 9th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
With thos numbers we would run out of roughnecks to send up there pretty quickly.
Josh Bulloc
Kansas City, MO
September 15th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Worry? Nah… unless you’re Ann Hodges of Alabama in 1954, then you might want worry… (Ann was the first modern report of a human being hit by a meteor; but don’t worry her roof and radio faired far worse than she.)