By Chris Skeldon this asteroid The size of the refrigerator that was recently broken a landAtmosphere a few hours after its discovery by astronomers. It’s the fifth time researchers have observed one of these cosmic rocks before they hit us.
The asteroid, called 2022 EB5, was first discovered by Krisztián Sárneczky, an astronomer at Piszkéstető Mountain Station, part of the galactic Konkulli Observatory, on March 11. Through it, the Earth’s atmosphere was hit at an estimated speed of 63,700 km / h and may have exploded, according to what he reported EarthSky. Judging by its speed, the rock was about a third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon when it was seen.
After the asteroid was discovered, NASA’s “Scout” collision risk assessment system began tracking space rocks. When it became clear that the asteroid would collide with Earth, Scout automatically alerted the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. The CNEOS team predicted exactly where and when the asteroid would collide, According to a press release from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“We were able to identify potential impact sites, which initially stretched from western Greenland to the coast of Norway,” David Farnokia, a navigation engineer at JPL who helped develop the Scouts, said in the statement. “As more observatories track the asteroid, our calculations of its path and impact site are becoming more accurate.”
The asteroid hit Earth’s atmosphere above Jan Mayen, an uninhabited volcanic island about 500 kilometers east green land and about 370 miles (595 km) northeast of Iceland around 10:23 p.m. local time, as expected, according to the statement.
Related: 7 Strangest Asteroids: Strange Space Rocks in Our Solar System
Eyewitnesses in Iceland and Greenland reported seeing a bright light in the sky and hearing a loud noise. New York Post. Experts believe they may have noticed the asteroid when it became a fireball. meteorAccording to EarthSky.
A fireball meteor is an extremely bright type of meteor that emits as much or more light as Venus in the night sky, according to American Meteor Society (AMS). This is due to the friction between the meteorite and the Earth’s atmosphere, which causes the rocks to heat up and release energy in the form of light. If a fireball meteor also explodes, it’s called a bolide, and it can also create a sonic boom, according to AMS.
Although our planet often collides with asteroids, 2022 EB5 is the fifth asteroid discovered by astronomers before it hit Earth; The first Earth causative agent was observed in 2008.
“Small asteroids like 2022 EB5 are numerous and impact the atmosphere frequently — about every 10 months,” Paul Chodas, director of CNEOS, said in the statement. “But very few of these asteroids have been spotted in space and were observed extensively before the collision, mainly because they were so faint until the last few hours.” However, he added, the scanning telescope must focus on the right part of the sky in time to be detected.
However, we can be confident that any larger impact asteroids will be discovered and tracked much sooner, similar to the way the doomsday asteroid was seen in the 2021 movie Looking Forward. However, the arrival of EB5 2022 presented a unique opportunity for the planetary defense community to test its capabilities and showed that we are well equipped to accurately track asteroid jets, according to the release.
Originally published on Live Science.