The planetary defense of humanity is improving. External threats from space. If they follow the laws of physics. A group of extraordinary humans proved it last week when the planetary defense community jumped into action to accurately track and predict where a small meteorite would fall.
The Catalina Sky Survey first noticed the meteorite at midnight on the 19th, in the time zone in which it landed. Catalina is one of the most prolific discoverers of asteroids. The steps that lead to a successful landing prediction are outlined in a NASA press release.
There was no real threat to anyone or anything on the ground. The network is designed to catch larger threats. The fact that it reacted with such speed shows that it is becoming more and more capable and will be more likely to find any potentially devastating events, such as the Chelyabinsk meteor, which caused 1400 injuries and $33 million in property damage.
The Chelyabinsk meteorite was 20 times the size of the previous meteorite and it would have been easier to see if the same resources were in place. It helps illuminate how planetary detection has gotten better.
The Minor Planet Center is a central data hub for small bodies surrounding the Earth. The entry was automatically picked up by Scout, a program from the Center for Near Earth Object Studies, which tried to assess the likelihood that the Earth would be impacted.
The initial assessment showed a 25% chance of hitting the Earth. The rest of the defense community came here.
Several other people, including a group of people from the Farpoint Observatory in Eskridge, Kansas, were watching the asteroid. There have been over 600 asteroids discovered there.
The data continued to stream in and there were 46 observations made in three hours. About a half hour before the impact, the University of Hawai'i made the last observation.
A fireball lit up the sky and was captured on door cam and other recording devices, resulting in some impressive videos. Astronomers went so far as to come up with models that showed how the Earth's actual gravity caused the asteroid to fall to its death.
This was an excellent exercise in the search for potentially dangerous asteroids and we are getting better at it. Fourteen years have passed since the first detection of 2008 TC3 but less than a year after the last detection of 2022. The last event dropped a lot of meteorites across the desert, and there are probably some from the year 2022. The planetary defense community gave the meteorite hunters a good start in finding them.
NASA Predicted Impact of Small Asteroid over Ontario, Canada.
The image shows a time-lapse of the sky in southern Ontario.
Robert Weryk received a credit.
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