1,000
times stronger than Chelyabinsk meteorite: New asteroid may threaten
Earth
Moscow
University’s robotic telescope has discovered a massive asteroid
that could potentially hit Earth in the future. If such a collision
happens, the explosion would be 1,000 more powerful the Chelyabinsk
meteorite explosion in 2013.
RT,
3
November, 2014
An
automatic telescope installed in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains, near
the city of Kislovodsk, first spotted the newly discovered space
rock, dubbed 2014 UR116. The asteroid
is estimated to be 370 meters in diameter, which is bigger than the
size of the notorious Apophis asteroid.
Once
Russian astronomers saw the new space object, they passed the data
to colleagues at the Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian
Astrophysical Observatory. That means many observatories around the
world closely scrutinized 2014 UR116, which helped to calculate the
object’s preliminary orbit.
2014
UR116’s orbit is fluctuating because it also passes close to Venus
and Mars, and the gravitational pull of these planets can also
influence the asteroid’s trajectory.
When
a meteorite
exploded in the skies above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in
February 2013, the energy of the explosion was estimated to be
equivalent to 300-500 kilotons of TNT. But the Chelyabinsk meteorite
was relatively small, about 17 meters in diameter and it
disintegrated with a blast at an altitude of over 20 kilometers.
The
newly discovered 2014 UR116 is much bigger and its collision with our
planet would be catastrophic, as its impact power would be 1,000
times stronger than of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, Scientific Russia
journal pointed out.
But
the good news is that the asteroid poses no threat to Earth for at
least the next six years, Victor Shor, research associate at the
Institute of Applied Astronomy told the Interfax news agency.
At
the moment the closest part of 2014 UR116’s orbit is 4.5 million
kilometers from Earth. But this will change, so scientists are going
to have to keep an eye on 2014 UR116 for years to come.
The
robotic telescope network that discovered 2014 UR116 is called
MASTER. It belongs to Moscow State University and was created in
close cooperation with Russian universities in Yekaterinburg,
Irkutsk, Blagoveschensk, the Kislovodsk station of Pulkovo
Observatory and help from the National University of San Juan,
Argentina.
MASTER
has already snagged two other potentially dangerous asteroids: 2013
SW24 and 2013 UG1, but they were smaller than 2014 UR116, ‘only’
250 and 125 meters respectively.
The
video showing the movement of 2014 UR116 is made up of a number of
photos taken by the MASTER robotic telescope, with several minutes
interval between each one.
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