For the sixth time in recorded history, astronomers have caught a glimpse of an asteroid before it hits Earth.
On November 19, 2022, nearly four hours before impact, Catalina Skye's survey found an asteroid named 2022 WJ1 on its approach path. A network of telescopes and scientists set in motion to calculate exactly when and where the asteroid will hit Earth.
This is great news. Although 2022 WJ1 was too small to cause significant damage, its discovery shows that the world's asteroid monitoring technology is improving, and it can detect falling space rocks (which could actually cause damage). There is an increased possibility to protect yourself from large rocks with
The universe is primarily the universe, but there are also many non-spaces in it. Near Earth, this out-of-space is mostly asteroids orbiting the Sun in close proximity to Earth's orbit. We call them near-Earth asteroids, and there are 30,656 cataloged at the time of writing.
Most of these asteroids are actually very small, and scientists are confident that almost all of them have turned out to be large enough to pose a significant threat and have studied them. decided that nothing would come close enough within the next century. become a threat.
Still, it's good to keep track of what's buzzing around us in space and hone your skills in finding dastardly rocks with the idea of making a grand entrance. The discovery of 2022 WJ1 was made on November 19, 2022, at 04:53 UTC by the Mount Lemmon Observatory, part of the Catalina Network. It continued to monitor the object and took four images that allowed astronomers to confirm the discovery and reported them to the IAU Minor Planet Center at 05:38 UTC.
These four images show the asteroid's orbit across the sky., and several impact monitoring programs indicated that there was about a 20% chance that the rock would land somewhere on the North American continent.
Follow-up observations allowed scientists to refine the measurements and pinpoint the time and place. Precisely at 08:27 UTC in 2022, WJ1 was seen as a bright green fireball crossing over the Golden Horseshoe region of southern Ontario, Canada.
Discovery was the first predicted meteor to fall in a densely populated area, but the rocks posed no threat. It was the smallest asteroid ever observed before entering the atmosphere.
Here it shattered into a ball of fire and fell to the ground in small fragments, most of which fell into the waters of Lake Ontario. Most of the meteorite fragments that can be found have to be small pieces of debris. Scientists hope to find some of them for further study of asteroids. The last of his five asteroids discovered before the impact was 2008 TC3, about four meters in diameter. 2014AA, 3 meters wide. 2018 LA, also 3 meters wide. 2019 MO with a diameter of 6 meters. And earlier this year came the 2022 EB5, which is about two meters in diameter.
2022 The discovery of WJ1 and the global collaboration that has pursued it is an amazing show of how advanced technology has evolved and the wonders of human collaboration to better understand the fickle cosmic rocks. Evidence.
Of course, these observations provide a rare opportunity to study what happens when an asteroid enters Earth's atmosphere.
"This fireball is particularly important because it was observed telescopically before the parent meteor impacted the atmosphere. It will be a rare opportunity to provide insight," said Peter Brown, an astronomer and physicist at the University of Western Ontario.
"This astonishing event, combined with telescopic measurements, provides clues to composition and magnitude, and gives us insight into how small asteroids break up in the atmosphere, important for planetary defense. They will.” Fresh fusion crust and gray stone interior. Scientists have requested that suspected debris be reported to the Royal Ontario Museum.