On August 16 , a auto - sized asteroid came to within 1,830 miles ( 2,950 km ) of our planet , making it the nearest sleep together non - impacting asteroid on record .
This asteroid , named 2020 QG , mensurate around 10 to 20 fundament ( 3 to 6 cadence ) in length , which is rough the sizing of a big SUV . Its closest approach to Earth come about at 12:08 a.m. ET on Saturday August 16 , when it appear some 1,830 miles above the southern Indian Ocean , accordingto NASA .
This marks the closest known close call with an asteroid , the previous record go on in 2011 , when the Catalina Sky Survey spottedasteroid 2011 CQ1 , which appeared 1,550 miles ( 2,500 kilometre ) high than 2020 QG .
Asteroid 2020 QG. It appears as a streak because it’s closer than the background stars, and because it zipped past the telescope’s camera.Image: ZTF/Caltech Optical Observatories
To be clear , 2020 QG posed no menace to life on Earth . asteroid of this size of it typically disclose up in the ambiance before hitting the aerofoil . Our solar organisation is litter with object around this sizing , but they can only be detected when traveling close to Earth . Most near - Earth asteroid , or NEAs , are harmless , develop no close than the Earth - Moon space of 238,850 miles ( 384,400 km ) .
2020 QG was clocked at 8 miles per 2nd ( 12.3 kilometre / s ) , which is actually a bit slow as far as these thing go . The asteroid turned by around 45 stage as it flew past our planet , as Paul Chodas , director of the Center for Near - Earth Object Studies at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory , explain in a NASA press liberation .
“ The asteroid fly close enough to Earth that Earth ’s gravity importantly changed its orbit , ” explain Tom Prince , a research scientist at the Zwicky Transient Facility and physicist at Caltech , in a ZTFpress release .
Animation showing the asteroid’s trajectory bending during its close approach to Earth.Gif: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The ZTF facility , located at Caltech ’s Palomar Observatory in San Diego County , gets credit for spotting the asteroid . This lookout is funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA ’s Near - Earth Object Observations Program , the latter of which funds undertaking designed to discover such objects .
ZTF has a large field of view , making such sightings potential . This robotic survey is also power by a machine learnedness program that sorts through more or less 100,000 images every sidereal day . The unnaturally level-headed system whittles down the listing of likely objects of interest down to around 1,000 , which are then vetted by homo . In this case , it was Kunal Deshmukh , a scholarly person at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay , who spy asteroid 2020 QG .
The asteroid appeared as a long streak in a wide - field of honor camera image rent or so six hour after the object ’s closest approach to Earth . The asteroid was by and by confirm by other ground - based telescopes , which aid to confirm its trajectory and physical characteristics .
As noted , this asteroid sit no threat . A bigger risk comes from asteroid larger than 460 feet ( 140 meters ) , which can cause considerable impairment if they chance on Earth .
https://gizmodo.com/damaged-seti-observatory-could-be-sidelined-for-months-1844763305
Both optical and tuner scope are used to discover and then determine the size , shape , revolution , and composition of NEAs . In addition to ZTF , other observatories on the hunt for potentially dangerous asteroid include the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System ( Pan - STARRS ) telescopes in Hawaii , the three Catalina Sky Survey telescopes in Arizona , and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico , which is currently out of commission after it waswrecked by a falling cable .
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