July 2019.. the world was either watching Fireworks (In America) or Stranger Things (All over the world and in America) .. meanwhile a potentially catastrophic asteroid named plainly “Asteroid 2019” snuck up on the planet.
Like truly really snuck up.
Internal emails have revealed the US space agency was caught by surprise by the asteroid named ‘2019 OK’.
It passed about 40,400 miles away from Earth – only 16 per cent of the way to the moon – and was the largest rock to have done so in almost 100 years.
Emails obtained by Buzzfeed News through Freedom of Information revealed one NASA staffer telling colleagues the asteroid had ‘slipped through the net’.
NASA only realized 2019 OK was coming 24 hours before it passed.
That is .. AFTER..
Experts say that had it hit, it would have devastated an entire city like London with over 30 times the energy of the atomic blast at Hiroshima.
From the BUZZFEED report:
“Because there may be media coverage tomorrow, I’m alerting you that in about 30 mins a 57-130 meter sized asteroid will pass Earth at only 0.19 lunar distances (~48,000 miles),” wrote Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer, in a July 24 email alert sent to other space agency experts. “2019 OK was spotted about 24 hrs ago.”
Flying at nearly 55,000 miles per hour, the asteroid came lumbering by with little warning, first detected that day by a small observatory in Brazil. The flyby came five times closer to Earth than the distance to the moon — a close shave by astronomical standards.
“If 2019 OK had entered and disrupted in Earth’s atmosphere over land, the blast wave could have created localized devastation to an area roughly 50 miles across,” according to a news release sent out by the agency weeks after the flyby. Such an impact has been estimated to happen about once every 3,000 years.
But we are safe in September.. all of this hindsight has 2020 vision…
In 2019 vision, another unsettling asteroid is looming..
Going on the WAYBACK Machine, let’s visit the Horror Report from 2002… A top story at the time: COLLISION WATCH on an asteroid that could hit in 2019..
This was reporting back then about what is happening this year:
Astronomers announced earlier last week that they had found an asteroid that could strike the Earth in 2019. More astronomers brought their equipment to bear on Asteroid NT7, however, and were able to provide enough trajectory data that NASA has eliminated the possibility of a collision in 2019; although, 2060 could still be a possible impact year (astronomers will probably rule that out eventually too). The asteroid is 2km across, so if it does ever strike the planet, it could cause significant damage.
So where is Asteroid NT7 today?
The February 2019 close shave did not come close enough to earth to cause panic, despite those 2002 headlines declaring that ’19 could be a wild year..
Another asteroid was discovered in 2004.. this one appears to be a little more potentially hazardous..
The Apophis 99942 was first detected on 15th May 2004 and it takes 3946 days (10.8 years) to complete an orbit around the Sun. It has a diameter of 370m and has been touted with the name, Apophis – The Egyptian God of Destruction because of the probable destruction it will cause if it were to hit Earth. The asteroid is expected to return in Earth’s vicinity on 13th April 2029.
Every 10 years this huge object has a risk of hitting us.
The asteroid has been classified as an Aten asteroid by NASA as it is a Near-Earth Asteroid that mostly resides within Earth’s orbit around the Sun. But during its 2029 fly-by, it will be classified as an Apollo asteroid due to its passage being less than 40,000 km from Earth.
The one that exploded over the Caribbean made a surprising encounter with earth after it was spotted 500,000 kilometers out – just for your information.
Apophis will come so close you may be able to see it with the naked eye — even at that distance, scientists say that it will be too close for comfort.
All of this becomes a little more unsettling when you contemplate that NASA missed a potentially big one…
Enjoy every day you’re alive…. Enjoy it all.
The dinosaurs didn’t have NASA..
Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered anyway..
