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Scoobydoomed t1_jaibikb wrote

Site is blocked in Europe. What's does it say? How close? Should we not look up or Don't Panic?

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the_fungible_man t1_jairxaf wrote

There are always several "large" asteroids passing a few million km from the Earth...

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danielravennest t1_jajhve6 wrote

Risk is based on size and impact probability. The asteroid with the highest risk ranking is 101955 Bennu. But it won't have a chance of impact until 2178.

We already sent a probe to it, and grabbed a sample that is due to land on Sept. 24th.

Everything else that shows up in news stories is either lower chance of impact, too small to do much damage, or so far in the future we're not worried yet.

On April 13th, 2029 the asteroid 99942 Apophis will pass only 31,600 km from the Earth's surface, but we know its orbit with 3 km uncertainty, so it will definitely miss us. The same probe that visited Bennu is being retasked to meet up with Apophis. There will probably be a lot of hype about that asteroid before it arrives.

Any other news story about asteroids approaching Earth are clickbait. If one that was a real hazard is discovered, it would be the top story in all the news media.

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danielravennest t1_jamzcnl wrote

It will be moving too fast for Hubble or Webb to track during the flyby (and Webb can't point towards Earth and the Sun). But they can try when it is farther away and appears to move more slowly. Some weather and military satellites in GEO may be able to spot it, and every telescope and radar on the ground will give it a try. Osiris-REX will be chasing it, and will try to boop Apophis like it did for the sample collection on Bennu, but the sample head is gone now.

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