Tag: NASA

Fire in the sky! Watch out for comet SW3! It may cause a massive meteor shower with more than 1,000 fireball per hours in late May

Strange Sounds – May 23, 2022

Heads up! On May 30-31, 2022, we might have a brief-but-intense meteor display, thanks to a comet that split apart in 1995 and is apparently still fragmenting. It might happen, as Earth passes through a particularly dense stream of icy particles which the comet left behind in the years 1995, 1897 and 1892.

Intense meteor display possible from comet SW3

If it does happen, we’ll see a grand display of meteors! And, even if it doesn’t, this comet is one you’ll want to come to know.

The meteor shower is the Tau Herculids. Its parent comet is 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, aka SW3. Astronomers found this comet in 1930. It orbits the sun every 5.4 years. And the comet will be in our evening sky again, in July and August 2022. It’s not an intrinsically bright comet. But it’s an exceptionally interesting comet. In 1995, astronomers watched as this comet began to fracture and litter its orbit with an increasing amount of debris.

That’s why, by some recent calculations, the May 2022 Tau Herculid meteor shower – spawned by SW3 – might be an intense display. Bill Cooke, who leads NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, said:

“This is going to be an all or nothing event. If the debris from SW3 was traveling more than 220 miles per hour (354 kph) when it separated from the comet, we might see a nice meteor shower. If the debris had slower ejection speeds, then nothing will make it to Earth and there will be no meteors from this comet.”

https://strangesounds.org

The US Southwest is hitting megadrought status

– February 14, 2022

About half of the contiguous US is currently experiencing moderate to extreme drought—including almost all of the West. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, as widely pervasive drought has been present for quite a while now in this region, where major reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead are hovering around all-time low-water levels. But how does this ongoing drought compare to the past? After all, the region is no stranger to dry stretches.

A 2020 paper examined the 2000-2018 data in the context of a tree ring reconstruction going back to the year 800 and stretching from Southern California to Wyoming. That team found that this was likely the second-driest period in the record, beat out only by a megadrought in the late 1500s.

At the time, the paper’s authors guessed that good precipitation in 2019 would be enough to end the extended drought. But instead, a particularly wicked 2021 kept the drought alive. As a result, three of those researchers—UCLA’s Park Williams and NASA’s Benjamin Cook and Jason Smerdon—decided to update the numbers through 2021.

The most mega

The term “megadrought” isn’t some sensationalist moniker from bad television; it’s a term for the handful of two- to three-decade Southwestern droughts in the past millennium or so—some with history-defining impacts on the civilizations who lived there at the time.

With the analysis updated, 2000-2021 ranks as the driest such 22-year period in the data going back to the year 800. The megadrought years of 1571-1592 slip into second place. (Though the error bars on the two periods overlap.)

Between 2000 and 2021, 18 of those years saw soil moisture below the long-term average. Only two past megadroughts meet that level of consistent dryness. The years 2002 and 2021 rank as the 11th and 12th driest years in the whole record—and it has been three centuries since a drier year occurred. And although some megadroughts were focused in a particular region, the drought of the last two decades has been widespread across the West. That’s what you would expect to see from a drought driven more by global warming than by precipitation patterns.

To estimate the contribution of climate change, the researchers repeated their analysis of climate models run with and without warming temperatures. Their previous work had estimated that 46 percent of the severity of the 2000-2018 drought was due to human-caused warming. For 2000-2021, they get a similar answer of 42 percent despite using a new generation of climate model simulations.

https://arstechnica.com

Don’t look up! Apocalypse-level asteroid to fly past Earth this month

AARON REICH – January 3, 2022

A massive kilometer-sized asteroid is set to fly past the Earth later this month in what is set to be the first flyby of an asteroid of this size during 2022, according to NASA’s asteroid tracker. This asteroid could cause a worldwide cataclysm if it impacted Earth, but this is thankfully extremely unlikely to happen.

Dubbed 7482 (1994 PC1), this asteroid has an estimated diameter of at least 1 kilometer, and could possibly be around 1.3 kilometers wide. For comparison, that’s over four times the size of the Eiffel Tower and 3.5 times the size of New York City’s Empire State Building.

The asteroid is categorized as an Apollo-class asteroid, meaning its orbit is wider than Earth’s and its orbital path around the Sun can cross the path of our own planet. Further, it has also been designated a potentially hazardous asteroid by NASA.

However, an impact is extremely unlikely. According to NASA’s calculations, 7482 (1994 PC1) will pass the Earth on January 18 at a distance of around 1.98 million kilometers away. For context, the Earth’s distance from the moon, approximately 384,000 kilometers, is over five times less than that.

This is in line with NASA’s prior predictions, which estimated that the Earth would be free of risk from any asteroid impacts within the next 100 years.

But had the Earth not been so lucky, the results could have been catastrophic.

https://www.jpost.com

‘Hazardous’ asteroid to enter Earth’s orbit next week

RT – December 3, 2021

A large asteroid, listed by NASA as “potentially hazardous,” is going to fly by Earth next week, the agency warns.

Asteroid 4660 Nereus is expected to enter Earth’s orbit on December 11, coming closer to our planet than ever before.

But there is no reason for panic, Boris Shustov, who heads the Institute of Astronomy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said.

“The asteroid will pass some 4.6 million miles away from Earth, which is about 10 times the distance between the Moon and Earth, so there’s no risk to talk about,” Shustov told RIA Novosti.

What makes it special isn’t its larger-than-usual size (equal to three football pitches), but its unique 1.82-year orbit around the Sun. Nereus approaches Earth at a safe distance roughly every 10 years because of this.

According to the scientists, the asteroid’s regular passing makes it a perfect candidate for a future robotic mission, and even a mining operation – it is believed to be rich in nickel, iron, and cobalt.

Despite currently posing no threat, Nereus is closely monitored by space agencies to make sure it does not deviate from its path.

https://www.rt.com

Several asteroids larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza will fly by Earth in coming weeks

ETH – October 14, 2021

Several asteroids bigger than the Great Pyramid of Giza will closely pass by Earth in the upcoming weeks, including one this week. According to data from NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, the asteroid 2021 SM3, which was discovered just last month, will pass by our planet on Friday.

The diameter of the asteroid is up to 525 feet, just bigger than the 482-foot long Great Pyramid of Giza. An object of that size would be enough to “cause local damage to the impact area” if it were to hit Earth.

2021 SM3 is classified as a near-Earth object, which NASA says “are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighborhood.” The bodies are anything that comes within 120 million miles of Earth.

At its closest point, the asteroid will be about 3.6 million miles from Earth. Though that sounds like a safe distance, it’s much closer than our neighbor Venus, which can be 74.8 million miles away depending on each planet’s orbit. 2021 SM3 won’t be the only large asteroid that passes by Earth soon.

Seven asteroids bigger than SM3 will come close to our planet by the end of November. Of all the recently approaching asteroids, 1996 VB3 will be the closest to Earth at 2.1 million miles on Oct. 20. That asteroid has a diameter of up to 754 feet.

https://endtimeheadlines.org

Bigger Than Burj Khalifa: ‘Potentially Hazardous’ Asteroid to Pass by Earth on Saturday

Sputnik News – August 20, 2021

NASA is keeping a close eye on 1,000 space rocks that are “potentially hazardous” to our planet.

The asteroid known as “2016 AJ193,” classified as “potentially hazardous” by NASA, will whizz past Earth on Saturday, 21 August. The 1.4 km-wide space rock – which is traveling at 94,208 km per hour – will pass within 3,427,445 km of Earth.

The asteroid will approach our planet at 11:10 am ET (8:40 pm IST and 3:10 pm GMT).

NASA will observe the asteroid from 20 to 24 August using radar. It’s 1.5 times the size of the Burj Khalifa, more than three times the size of the Empire State Building, and over 4.5 times the size of the Eiffel Tower – it was spotted in January 2016 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) facility, which is part of Hawaii’s Haleakala Observatory.

Every 5.9 years, it orbits the Sun – as it travels towards Earth’s orbit it shoots off in Jupiter’s direction. This visit will be 2016 AJ193’s closest approach to Earth for at least for the next 65 years.

NASA is currently tracking over 26,000 near-Earth asteroids, while over 1,000 are considered potentially hazardous.

https://sputniknews.com

Dust storms and valley fever in the American West

Lia Potee – May 07, 2021

Valley fever is a dangerous threat to human health – and cases are on the rise in the arid southwestern United States, as wind from increasing dust storms can transport the fungal spores that cause the disease. Valley fever is caused by the Coccidioides fungus, which grows in dirt and fields and can cause fever, rash and coughing. Using NASA research and satellite data, the World Meteorological Organization is refining its Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System to help forecast where dust risk is greatest.

George Mason University’s Daniel Tong, one of the first scientists to discover the link between dust storms and Valley fever, leads a NASA-funded team to track the airborne spread of Valley fever across the United States for the first time.

There are about 15 thousand cases of Valley fever in the U.S. each year, and approximately 200 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Funded by NASA’s Earth Science Division, Tong’s team is helping track disease risk for epidemiologists, health care providers and public health decision makers.

“Our paper was the first one to reveal the positive relationship between dust storms and Valley fever,” said Tong. “So now we’re asking the question: How can we detect that dust in the air?”

https://www.terradaily.com

‘Martian Plague’: Bringing Mars Samples to Earth May Cause a Devastating Pandemic, Scientists Warn

– April 30, 2021

While Perseverance rover is rolling over the Red Planet studying its geology and taking fancy selfies with the help of the Ingenuity helicopter, researchers back on Earth are looking forward to welcome and investigating the first Martian soil samples in the upcoming years.

Bringing rocks from the Marian surface to Earth does not seem very exciting to a small group of enthusiasts from The International Committee Against Mars Sample Return (ICAMSR), who warn about incredible risks these life-bearing samples may pose to our home planet, including an immense “Martian plague”.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) are working together on The Mars Sample Return Campaign in an effort to bring precious rocks and soil to Earth for detailed tests. They plan to launch a lander in 2026 to pick up samples collected by the Perseverance rover which landed on the Red planet in February. So the Martian soils – including some micro-organisms which potentially inhabit them – may end up on our planet in the next decade.

According to NASA, “returning pristine samples of Mars to Earth has been a goal for generations of planetary scientists.”

Dr. Gilbert Levin is not very enthusiastic about this. The engineer, who was the one investigating NASA’s Viking programme, which ran from 1975 to 1983, told the Daily Star that there is a “real chance” the Red Planet is inhabited by life forms that would leak to Earth, potentially causing a new, devastating pandemic from which we have no defense.

“I fear that, even if a safe Mars Sample Return container could be made and brought to Earth, there is a good probability that some of the sample would escape from the ‘secure’ lab where the container would be opened,” Levin says.

Scientists from ICAMSR express a similar caution, citing legendary astronomer Carl Sagan, who warned about the consequences of the sample-bringing in his 1973 book:

“Precisely because Mars is an environment of great potential biological interest, it is possible that on Mars there are pathogens, organisms which, if transported to the terrestrial environment, might do enormous biological damage…a Martian plague.”

https://sputniknews.com

An asteroid the size of the Golden Gate Bridge to make “very close encounter” with Earth on first full day of spring

Sophie Lewis – March 12, 2021

An asteroid similar in size to the Golden Gate Bridge will whip past Earth later this month — the largest and fastest asteroid to pass close to our planet this year.

But don’t worry, it won’t get too close.

The asteroid, officially known by NASA as 231937 (2001 FO32), is about 1,300 to 2,230 feet wide, according to observations made by the NEOWISE team, putting it at the smaller end of the scale. It has an orbit period of 810 days.

The asteroid is smaller than the last notable one to make a close approach to Earth, but it will be three times closer, NASA said in a statement Thursday.

2001 FO32 is set to come within 1.25 million miles of Earth at 11:02 a.m. ET on March 21, just one day after the spring equinox. That’s close enough for NASA to classify it as “potentially hazardous” in its database of near-Earth asteroids, a designation given when they come within about 4.65 million miles of Earth, and are larger than 500 feet in diameter.

It will zoom past at almost 77,000 miles per hour, or 21 miles per second — peaking scientists’ interests as one of the fastest space rocks known to fly past Earth. The asteroid is “unusually speedy” due to its highly inclined and elongated orbit around the sun, which takes it closer to the sun than Mercury and twice as far from the sun as Mars.

https://www.cbsnews.com

Rocky start: 2021 will begin with unwelcome, 220-meter wide asteroid visitor, NASA warns

RT – January 1, 2021

As nations across the globe say ‘good riddance’ to 2020, NASA has warned that a monstrous 220-meter asteroid is headed Earth’s way early in the new year.

Before that, this year’s final asteroid, 2020 YB4, measuring just 36 meters in diameter or roughly half the wingspan of a 747, passed by the Earth shortly after 6am UTC at a distance of 6.1 million kilometers. That means, in terms of the threat posed by space rocks at least, the planet made it out of 2020 somewhat intact.

However, in the first days of January, three additional, small Near Earth Objects (NEOs) will grace the Earth with their presence, for a brief time.

Just two days into 2021, the 15-meter asteroid 2019 YB4 will fly by at a safe distance of 6.4 million kilometers. The very next day, it will be followed up by two more chunks of cosmic debris in the form of the 15-meter 2020 YA1 and the 21-meter 2020 YP4, which will pass by at 1.5 and 2.1 million kilometers respectively.

But the biggie will come on January 3, as the relatively mountainous 2003 AF23, measuring an impressive 220m in diameter or about as wide as the Golden Gate Bridge is tall, will shoot past at 6.9 million kilometers.

https://www.rt.com