Earth Just Narrowly Missed Getting Hit by an Asteroid
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On Saturday last we were nearly hit by an 50-100 feet astroid, named '2016 QA2'. Astronomers only discovered this asteroid a few hours before it almost hit us!
It seems the astroid's path is a huge ellipse and not expected to come near us but it did pass at a distance similar to our outer satellites. Also its under the size being searched for by astronomers which is around the 400 feet size.The Chelyabinsk asteroid, which exploded over Russia in 2013, damaged multiple buildings and injured over 1500 people and that asteroid was only about 55 feet wide. So, if the unseen until the last minute, astroid had hit us the damage would have been considerable.
More details on '2016 QA2' may be found here, http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a22619/earth-narrowly-missed-by-asteroid/?mag=pop%26amp;list=nl_pnl_news%26amp;src=nl%26amp;date=083116
NASA has been charged with mapping astroids that could possibly hit us but the resources being made available to do this job are not enough by a long shot.
Surely the UN should take charge of this astroid search and bring in all member countries so that we could get the job done quicker.
I also imagine if a small fraction of the sums being spent by NATO, Russia, China etc on nuclear weapons was put to searching for astroids the job would be done in double quick time.
It would be a simple matter of having the weapons manufactures retool and get into telescope manufacture! Why the weapons manufactures? Answer, they would not be willing to loose their huge ongoing profits.
Any thoughts?
Mike
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16,764 m wide?
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