The three weeks’ warning about asteroid 2015 TB145 is strange, considering that NASA administrator Charles Bolden warned the House Science, Space and Technology Committee of the possibility of an asteroid like this two years ago. Fortunately for all earthlings, this asteroid poses no threat, but instead offers an opportunity for space enthusiasts to see something through their telescopes.
The asteroid dubbed 2015 TB145 will be visible late on October 30 and in the pre-dawn of October 31. At about 11:14 am Eastern Standard Time, the asteroid will whiz by us, just 310,000 miles (498,897 km) from Earth. The last time an asteroid came that close to our globe was in 2006, though NASA had seen it coming more than a year in advance. The next large object scheduled to come this close is 1999 AN10, which will pass by at a distance of about 240,000 miles (390,000 km), or about 1 lunar distance, on August 7, 2027.
NASA calculates that all known so-called Potentially Hazardous Asteroids have less than a 0.01 percent probability of striking Earth within the next 100 years. The same odds are given by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention for someone being injured by a toilet in any given year.
“Unfortunately we only know about roughly 1 percent of those asteroids that get down to the 30 meter size, so there’s a tremendous amount out there that we have yet to discover.” Jason Kessler told CNN in an interview this summer, adding that “potentially hundreds of thousands” could be hurtling toward Earth without yet being spotted.
The most recent case of a meteor damaging the Earth was in February of 2013, when one impacted the atmosphere over central Russia. NASA has identified 13,256 Near Earth Objects, 1,635 of which are potentially dangerous due to their size. Hopefully they’ll give us a little more warning should we ever face something truly dangerous. Short notice or not, it wouldn’t be surprising if NASA was pulling another “water on Mars” stunt and using this news to remain relevant.
Source: rt.com
Asteroid 2015 TB145 orbital diagram. Large asteroid will safely pass Earth on #Halloween. https://t.co/nezXmPnjbs pic.twitter.com/lM27xh2JFC
— Epic Cosmos (@EpicCosmos) octubre 20, 2015
