Was Your Labor Day Almost Ruined by an Asteroid?
Travel News — By spencerspellman on September 13, 2010 at 12:00 pmNo, it isn’t a rehashed treatment of an “Armageddon” type movie for Labor Day 2010– two asteroids really did zoom past Earth just after the holiday weekend. Wired was one of the many publications that raised people’s attentions around the world with reports of the asteroid passerby.
The science magazine also got their hands on an animation of the asteroid that was stitched together by a couple amateur astronomers. The astronomers got several different exposures that they were able to piece together to create the animation that shows the asteroid moving through space. At its closest point, one of the asteroids missed the Earth by about 150,000 miles, while another asteroid got within 49,000 miles of Earth shortly after, Wired reports.
Both of the asteroids were somewhat small, that is compared to what you may be used to seeing in disaster movies. The first was approximately 32 by 65 feet long, while the second was approximately 20 by 46 feet long– both of which if they entered the atmosphere, would’ve created an air-burst approximately times the size of the Hiroshima atom bomb. These two incidents, though thousands of miles from earth, were still a somber reminder and will certainly raise awareness of near-Earth objects.
[Photo courtesy of Astro Steve]
-
- Tweet
- Pin It
-
