Asteroid Survey: NASA Says 4,700 Space Rocks 'Possibly Hazardous'

Know that space rock that wreaked havoc on the world in the 1998 action movie Armageddon? Well, that might have been fiction--but a new NASA study identifies about 4,700 “potentially hazardous” asteroids near Earth. Deja vu?

The asteroids are on astronomers’ radar because they are headed dangerously close to Earth—within five million miles—and are big enough to pass through our planet’s atmosphere and cause major damage. In the image above, the bright space rocks have diameters of more than about 330 feet (100 meters).

The study of potentially hazardous asteroids is part of NASA’s wide-field infrared survey explorer mission, or WISE for short.

"We've made a good start at finding those objects that truly represent an impact hazard to Earth," Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's near-Earth object observation program, said in a written statement. "But we've many more to find, and it will take a concerted effort during the next couple of decades to find all of them that could do serious damage or be a mission destination in the future."

This diagram illustrates the differences between orbits of a typical asteroid near Earth (blue) and a potentially hazardous asteroid (orange).

The research suggests that more perilous asteroids than previously thought are in so-called low-inclination orbits, which means they're more aligned with the plane of Earth’s orbit. Other near-Earth asteroids are farther away.

“Our team was surprised to find the overabundance of low-inclination PHAs [potentially hazardous asteroids]. Because they will tend to make more close approaches to Earth, these targets can provide the best opportunities for the next generation of human and robotic exploration,” Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in the written statement.

The WISE spacecraft has catalogued hundreds of millions of objects in our solar system, snapping photos of about 600 near-Earth asteroids, NASA researchers said. Based on previous data from the spacecraft, researchers last year estimated that about 20,500 asteroids larger than 100 meters were orbiting near Earth, but they weren't given the stamp of "potentially hazardous."

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Comments

[Stoopid American]

02:36 AM on 06/01/2012

It's time to do serious thinking about contingencies. We're in a cosmic shooting gallery. Sooner or later our luck will run out and a sizable one will hit us. We need to be prepared to mitigate the disaster, or eliminate it entirely if the technology allows.

[mamacat]

03:23 AM on 05/29/2012

A small asteroid has just been discovered which will pass only 14,000 km from Earth today, May 29. Too small to do much damage, even if it impacted over a major city it would probably only rain down fragments.

http://spaceweather.com/

[mamacat]

04:49 PM on 05/28/2012

Just thinking....

occasionally meteoroids are found that seem to have come from outside of our own solar system. I guess it is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that something large enough to be dangerous could intersect this star system on its way around the galaxy. Me thinks it would behoove us, when the technology allows, to try to protect this planet from any and all wayward interlopers above a certain size.

[ThinkCreeps]

01:21 PM on 05/29/2012

Nothing rocky has ever been seen from outside. Dusty and icy maybe, but still from within the Sun's sphere of influence.

[Stoopid American]

02:37 AM on 06/01/2012

A big enough snowball moving quickly enough will do plenty enough damage.

[cosmicdart]

05:01 AM on 05/27/2012

It's good to know that there are millions of asteroids in our solar system that may be used to supply us with materials with which to build things in space without the need to transport these materials out of Earth's gravity well. Our future space colonies will have all the raw materials that they need to build a Solar Empire.

[mamacat]

11:49 PM on 05/25/2012

http://www.spaceweather.com/

NASA/JPL discovered a new asteroid, 2012 KP 24, on May 23rd. By May 24th they plotted its orbit. They have determined that it is about 80 feet in diameter, and will pass Earth on May 28th, this Monday, as close as some of the geo-synchronous satellites, about 24,000 miles.

If it were on a collision course we would have had only 4 days warning. The 1908 Tunguska explosion was caused by a passing body with an estimated size of a few tens of meters, for comparison.

[Pawnmasta]

10:21 PM on 05/25/2012

Compare the comments (interest) on this news to anything about Lindsey Lohan.

We're doomed.

[edtheengineer]

03:27 PM on 05/26/2012

Doom is more likely to result from excessive interest in Kim KarKrashKan.

[WorkhelpWorkhelp]

10:25 PM on 05/27/2012

And her hemiroids.

[Durt Bagg]

01:16 PM on 05/25/2012

2040... I'll be dust...

[KingGlorious]

05:04 PM on 05/22/2012

Very disturbing....

[jenniferkizzy]

01:55 AM on 05/22/2012

two way's the world could possibly end one day the sun becomes a red giant or a super nova it's when a star is about too die and they make something akin too iron once that is made gravity take's care of the rest and man super nova but with out a super nova there is no me you or us sweet huh

[WI 7]

03:24 AM on 07/19/2012

The sun will not end in a super nova, it will become a red giant but instead of exploding....it will just eject its gas shell into a planetary nebula....but the world will end way before that time as the sun startes to swell, the Earths atmosphere and water will evaporate away long before the sun swallows mercury and vernus.

[Italia58]

08:22 PM on 05/21/2012

Ok. Geez pleez STOP WITH THIS MADNESS! The reason they use the words "possibly" is because they know...c'mon now. How long has the earth been around and it has NEVER been taken out by an astroid? The power of the the almighty is maginficent. So why are they trying to instill this type of thought? There really is a beautiful reasoning to the rhyme and it is spelled the power of GOD, THE OMNIFICENT, THE ALPHA AND OMEGA, The CREATOR, "I AM who I AM." "I AM, THE GOD OF YOUR FATHERS, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB" "THE ANCIENT OF DAYS" Psalm 104:5: “THOU DIDST FIX THE EARTH ON ITS FOUNDATION SO THAT IT NEVER CAN BE SHAKEN."

Isaiah 45:18: “...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast...”

[Jarrod Putnam]

01:00 PM on 05/22/2012

"How long has the earth been around and it has NEVER been taken out by an astroid?"

Really? You think asteroids just "take out" planets? No, PLANETS take out planets. Earth has been pummeled by asteroids for billions of years. Please keep your bronze age thinking in the cave with you. Don't slow down society like your belief system already has.

[Italia58]

08:20 AM on 05/24/2012

Read with comprehension before you attack.  I didn't say that the earth was not hit by asteroids everyone knows that.  I was commenting on how they try to instill fear that somehow the earth will be taken out i.e. "destroyed" by an astroid and it hasn't happened in the history of the earth and there is a reason for that.  You really do not want to attack that fact, you want to attack the fact that God exists. You are entitled to your beliefs and I am entitled to mine.  There's no war going on here with me so do not start one.  I am not a person filled with hate and that is because I have God in my life.  I am a gentle soul, you probably are not.

[DakkonA]

02:27 PM on 05/22/2012

So he's keeping asteroids at bay, but has no issue with giant tsunamis , tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes, and all the other things which are taking us out piecemeal?

[Italia58]

08:21 AM on 05/24/2012

The article was not about hurrianes, earthquakes.  The article was about astroids inferring the destruction of earth and that we may be in danger.  Read with comprehension.

[mamacat]

08:21 PM on 05/21/2012

http://spaceweather.com/

The website above keeps track of PHAs and smaller asteroids, ones only big enough to kill a few million or so. I like to check it out on a daily basis, and I have noticed that often we do not detect the "smaller" asteroids (ones too small to cause a mass extinction event, but still big enough to cause a big crater or a big blast) until they are almost upon us, or have already passed by us.

Thus, not only do we not have a plan in place to protect us from deadly asteroids after they have been detected, but often we do not detect them until the very last moment. Seems to me we have a ways to go on improving our safety.

If, heavens forbid, something similar to the 1908 Tunguska impactor were to explode somewhere over Earth today, I suspect the world's governments would quickly decide that protecting us from similar objects had become job number one.

I would also point out that it is possible that the Earth had a pretty large impact south of New Zealand about 600 years ago. The Mahuika crater is about 12 MILES in diameter, on the seafloor, and according to Maori legends their villages on the south facing of shores of New Zealand were abandoned about that time. There is also evidence of a gigantic tsunami, with debris as much as 700 feet above sea level, from that time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahuika_crater

[mamacat]

08:52 PM on 05/21/2012

Another link about the comet impact in the 15th century south of New Zealand.

http://www.gavinmenzies.net/Evidence/22-the-destruction-of-zhou-man-and-hong-bao%E2%80%99s-fleets-in-the-southern-ocean-by-a-tsunami-triggered-by-a-comet/

[mamacat]

08:58 PM on 05/21/2012

Another link

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2011/arch11/110817tsunamis.htm

[toldlad]

01:10 PM on 05/21/2012

Space rocks at 5 million miles...Hmmm! Betcha right now most people are more worried about how the impact of "Mitts off" Romney and another nasty dose of space junk ideas from the loony GOP would be far more likely to devastate life here on Earth.

[kitkatmom1]

11:07 AM on 05/21/2012

They should nuke it while it's still far enough away from the earth. How are they going to divert something, that's big enough to take out half of the earth? Suppose their plan to divert it doesn't work. The closer it gets to the earth, the more dangerous it will be for earth. Maybe they could send up an unmanned space shuttle, attach it to the asteroid and try dragging it towards the sun and let the sun burn it up. It's just an idea, maybe, maybe not.

[Talab]

10:59 AM on 05/25/2012

How about this ... instead of disarming the worlds nukes they are disposed of by firing them at asteroids , win win for the human race

[manmi1]

10:48 AM on 05/21/2012

If you ignore it.. it will go away, right?

[smp276dp]

10:38 AM on 05/21/2012

They consider five million miles close?
What if it was eight hundred thousand miles?
What would they consider that?

[Francois G]

07:50 AM on 05/22/2012

Very close...

[smp276dp]

09:16 AM on 05/22/2012

funny