An Asteroid Hit Earth Right After It Was Spotted By A Telescope!
Friday, June 28, 2019 IST
NASA is constantly updating us on any sights of asteroids near our Earth along with their probability of hitting our planet. For instance, just last week, ESA predicted that asteroid 2006 QV89 has a 1-in-7000 chance of hitting our Earth in September. And in case you’re not already aware, asteroids can potentially cause a lot of damage to our planet if they ever manage to reach us. And apparently, an asteroid, named 2019 MO, actually collided with our planet last weekend before burning off in the sky near Puerto Rico.
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2019 MO (or NEOCP A10eoM1), an asteroid that was almost the size of a car (4-meter diameter) had already been detected by the ATLAS systems based at Mauna Loa on Hawaii island before it entered Earth. It was observed almost four times within a short span of 30 minutes by ATLAS on the morning of June 22. ATLAS systems comprises of two telescopes that are constantly analyzing the night sky, twice a week. In fact, as per the University of Hawaii, ATLAS manages to track nearly 100 asteroids with every year ranging in size from 30 meters and upwards. However, 2019 MO was a smaller asteroid which is why it got completely burned up on entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) also analyzed the first few observations of the asteroid and assigned it an impact rating of 2, meaning the asteroid couldn't have affected our Earth in a major way (which was true). Also, the fact that the telescopes were able to track the asteroid prior to it entering the Earth point towards the advancement in the current scientific and astronomy systems. This is because detecting asteroids via telescope is not a very common occasion, as pointed out by CNET. So although the 2019 MO was a small and harmless asteroid that didn’t manage to cause any colossal damage to our Earth, space agencies are constantly on the lookout for asteroids that might actually cause potential damage.
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