Amazing News: Monster Asteroid Not striking Earth, Researchers Say

lookup, it’s okay

A recent Phys.org report might have been the story of 2021’s “Don’t Look Up,” the Netflix series about an asteroid that threatens to strike Earth. Fortunately, it was merely a close call.

The website’s initial observations of an asteroid named 2022 AE1 presented a possible impact with Earth on July of 2023. However, the risk is now virtually zero, and the asteroid removed from the European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC) threat list.

Marco Micheli, an astronomer at ESA’s NEOCC, claimed that in January of this year, his team became conscious of an asteroid with the highest ranking on the Palermo scale observed in more than ten years. Micheli added that he had never seen such a dangerous object in his ten years at ESA. Micheli ended by saying that tracking the asteroid 2022 AE1 was a joy and fine-tuning its trajectory till the team had sufficient data to claim for sure it would not hit.

Close Calls

While we could not define tracking an asteroid as fun, it’s comforting to know it will not strike our home. The Palermo scale categorizes and focuses on risks of near-Earth objects (NEOs) by incorporating the possible energy of the strike, date of impact, and affect probability. Most asteroids burn up upon entrance into Earth’s atmosphere; however, some often present a small risk.

It is a little frightening to think about colossal space rocks crashing into the Planet. However, we can sleep easy understanding that the NEOCC’s Asteroid Orbit Determination (AstOD) automatic system flagged asteroid 2022 AE1 just 24 hours after its discovery. Each day, the system determines orbits and ranks them with the Palermo scale, quickly uploading the results on the NEOCC website.

Originally published by: futurism.com