Tracking Incoming Asteroids with NASA’s Scout
Don’t be alarmed, but there is a large rock passing by earth tonight. NASA has already determined that the Near Earth Object 2016-UR84, a rock between 5 and 25 meters in diameter, will pass a safe 310 thousand miles from Earth. First seen only 5 days ago, such a discovery might have caused panic in the past. Forcing a multitude of different telescopes around the world to work together to figure out if such an object was on a collision course with our planet. But NASA’s new system, Scout, automatically gathers the information and makes a rapid determination if objects are friend or foe.
https://youtu.be/qEFdMcNIYVE?t=20s
Back in 2008 a large asteroid of over 80 tons, exploded over a remote area in Sudan. 2008 TC3 was seen 19 hours before it came into our atmosphere. Such short notice of these events compelled NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to begin developing a system which would rapidly evaluate if a newly discovered asteroid was an immediate threat. Scout automates the process to give early insights to trouble and the potential to give early warnings.
Scout represents the next small step to understand and detect imminent threats. The long-term goal is to detect such objects which are 30 years away and divert them before they get close.
This doesn't sound too good. Hopefully information like this will be made public.
The International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center, which tracks the raw observational data from telescopes around the world, is accessible to the public. http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/
Where's Bruce Willis when you need him!?
For entertainment value, I like that movie!
Have you checked out https://b612foundation.org/sentinel/ ?
Sorry, that looks very spammy. This B612 foundation is a group of people who are making a satellite that will scan the solar system for any asteroids that could harm Earth.