How Astronomers Spot an Asteroid Before It Hits the Planet

November 28, 2022 By Monica Green

(Image Credit Google)

A tiny asteroid made its way toward the Earth this month and crossed the sky over Toronto. This asteroid was noteworthy because it was one of the first few asteroids to strike Earth that we were aware was about to happen, even though it was only a few meters wide and burned up harmlessly in the atmosphere. The Catalina Sky Survey project, which makes use of a telescope at the Catalina Station in Tucson, Arizona, first identified the asteroid as 2022 WJ1. It was just the sixth asteroid to be discovered before hitting Earth, and it did so four hours before it was scheduled to do so. The Minor Planet Center, which compiles international data on near-Earth objects and organizes follow-up observations with astronomers worldwide, received the notification of the discovery. Even if this particular asteroid was small and unintentionally harmful, being able to identify it and alert others to its impending arrival before impact is a crucial step in honing Earth's planetary defense strategies. [caption id="attachment_66703" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]

Image credit: nasa[/caption] Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) program manager for NASA Kelly Fast remarked in a statement that the response to this short-warning event "truly displayed the skill and readiness of the planetary defense community." Such innocuous collisions "become spontaneous real-world drills and give us confidence that NASA's planetary defense systems are capable of directing the response to the possibility of a severe collision by a larger object." Recently, the test of the DART spacecraft, which was successful in altering an asteroid's orbit by smashing into it, sparked interest in planetary defense. [caption id="attachment_66705" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]

Image credit: nasa[/caption] The second part of the challenge is identifying potentially dangerous asteroids that endanger the planet; diverting an asteroid is simply one solution. These must be discovered in time to launch a mission like DART, which needs years of notice. Future initiatives like the NEO Surveyor mission, along with active projects like NEOWISE, will seek to detect these objects before they approach the Earth.

By Monica Green

I am specialised in latest tech and tech discoveries.

How Astronomers Spot an Asteroid Before It Hits the Planet

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