Since
the beginning of the 21st century, a dozens of asteroids crashing into
Earth. Some of them even far more powerful than the atomic bomb that
devastated a city can be. It became evident how vulnerable Our planet,
not only by the damage caused by its age coupled with an aging human
greed, but also 'attack' from the outside.
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| 65 million years ago a giant asteroid hit the Earth and trigger the extinction of dinosaur species. But it turns out, it's not the most powerful. (Picture from: http://www.reuters.com/) |
In
commemoration of Earth Day this year, the B612 Foundation - a
non-profit asteroid hunters organization that founded by former NASA
astronaut, have launched a video visualization the event of space rocks
hit Our planet.
As
quoted from SPACE, the video is compiled based on the latest data from
the sensor network is spread all over the world, of the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is designed to detect
nuclear explosions.
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| A graphic representation by the B612 Foundation showing asteroid impacts. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1hqjino) |
Fortunately, most of the space rocks go unnoticed because they were destroyed when penetrating Our Earth shield, the atmosphere. Needless to trigger havoc on Earth. Moreover, collisions occur more frequently over the remote ocean regions.
However as seen in the animation, the space rock collision incidents occur in densely populated areas. One of them is happening in the sky of Chelyabinsk, Russia. In February 2013, 600 kilotons meteorite exploded, destroying hundreds of buildings and injuring more than 1,000 people. By launching the video, B612 Foundation wants to raise awareness about why Our Earth needs an asteroid tracking system.
"Most of the giant asteroid that could potentially destroy a country or even a continent it has been detected, but only less than 110 thousands - millions - potentially hazardous asteroids destroying the metropolitan cities are found by all humans belong to the observatory at the moment," said the former NASA astronaut Ed Lu who started the B612 Foundation in 2002 with his fellow astronauts.
"Because we do not know where or when another major collision will occur, the only way to prevent the catastrophe of an asteroid destroyer of cities are just 'good luck'," added Ed. Indeed, humans are lucky. One was the Tunguska incident in 1908, in which the space rock about 45 meters (147.64 feet) wide, broke and hit the Earth in remote areas.
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| This diagram shows the various parts of the Sentinel Space Telescope, an asteroid-monitoring observatory planned by the B612 Foundation. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1hqjALa) |
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| This image depicts the region of view of the B612 Foundation's planned Sentinel Space Telescope to monitor potentially dangerous asteroids. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1nHyW35) |
However,
data that taken from NASA's Wise telescope suggests that the population
of objects in the size range of 100-1000 meters may approach 20,000 in
number, and most of them have not been identified and tracked. Not to
mention the size is smaller than that.
In
fact the time is precious. The faster an Earth-threatening space rock
detected, the easier it is to deal with it. Conversely, if it escapes
without our knowledge, it could be a disaster. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | SPACE]
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