Today , we got some unvoiced number on the asteroid , comets and other objects whizzing through space near Earth .
AstrophysicistAmy Mainzertook a break from asteroid - hunt at JPL toanswer a couple of our most burning questions about asteroids , comets , and whatever else is just over our heads . Among the questions she answer were just how likely an Armageddon - sized asteroid clang was ( “ The only asteroid we screw of that ’s as big as Texas [ Ceres ] is parked safely and soundly in the Main Asteroid Belt and is n’t going anywhere . Whew ! ” ) , just whereEarth Trojan asteroidsmight add up from ( “ there are some theory that postulate that they might be leftovers from the solar organization ’s birthing . But my guesswork is that they ’re more late capture – kind of like a leaf that gets temporarily drag into an Mary Baker Eddy in a river , then eventually gets boot back out ” ) , and also gave us some astonishing information about just how much there is out there still get out to happen :
https://gizmodo.com/ask-an-astrophysicist-anything-you-want-about-asteroid-1468979220
Right now , there are several survey that are discovering near - Earth asteroid , and they ’re support by a meshing of recreational and professional astronomers who keep track of them . The most productive survey to date in terms of total numeral of discoveries is the Catalina Sky Survey , along with PanSTARRS and LINEAR . The biotic community is attain about 1000 unexampled close - Earth objects per year of all sizes , which have in mind there are still a lot more out there allow to find . With our team ’s work using the NEOWISE quad - based infrared sight observations , we were able to make some estimates of how many objects are out there , and what fraction have been found . Our observations and calculations show that about 25 % of near - Earth asteroid larger than 100 meters in diam have already been discovered , and there are about 20,500 that are out there . We ’d plain like to do a more comprehensive sight , though , and that ’s why we proposed NEOCam !
Image : JPL / NASA NEOWISE
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