“You can only do something to address a threat if you know about it,” Moissl says. “So the very first step in the whole chain is observations 🔭. You need to find the #asteroids.” https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/asteroids-team-saving-earth
"If necessary, we can build a spacecraft to deflect an #asteroid ☄️ in four years" ⏳🥱 https://www.mundoamerica.com/entertainment/2025/02/24/67bc4638fc6c83360e8b4591.html
#Asteroid #2017SH33 ☄️ was last observed 🔭 in 2017 https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=2017%20SH33 and estimated 700m-1.6 km in diameter https://neo.ssa.esa.int/risk-list. It might impact 💥 2026-04-30 (but we haven't a clue as there isn't any recent data)
The #meteorite ☄️ crashed through the roof of a two-story house. It hit the floor in a bedroom, where it ricocheted and struck another part of the ceiling https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/us/meteorite-crash-texas-home.html
#NASA’s #NEOSurveyor mission is now slated for no earlier than 📆 mid-2027, will spend at least five years scanning for potentially hazardous #asteroids ☄️ larger than 140 meters.
#NEOHunter - nearly nine times more massive than #DART - could execute a direct high-energy impact 💥, delivering approximately 1.5 times the kinetic energy
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2026/03/blue-origin-neo-hunter-planetary-defense/
#LSST performs very well for large impactors ☄️, discovering about 79.7% of objects larger than 140 m before impact. Only 50.3% of 50–140 m impactors, 26.8% of 20–50 m impactors, and 10.5% of 10–20 m impactors are discovered 🔭 at all. About 60% of large impactors fail to reach a one-year warning threshold. Upper mid-size objects are usually discovered only a few months before impact 💥 https://www.newplanetarium.com/journal/2026-01-29
This paper evaluates how effectively the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s LSST can detect asteroids on a direct collision course with Earth and how much warning time those detections provide. LSST performs well for large, hazardous asteroids but struggles to give long advance warning for smaller impactor
14:43 - The #Torino scale explained "10 is a really bad day for the #dinosaurs" 🦕 (including a really nice #Trump #parody 😄) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK3tW1E615Y
Between 140 meters and 1 km : 10,624 #asteroids ☄️ discovered 🔭 https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/over-33000-near-earth-asteroids-have-been-detected-since-1990
A solution to mitigate low #deflection efficiency is to apply multiple low-energy impactors rather than a single high-energy impactor 💥. A lower kinetic energy impactor results in a smaller crater 🕳️ that is less affected by global curvature, increasing momentum transfer efficiency https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56010-w
Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission impact on asteroid Dimophos resulted in an elliptical ejecta plume. Here, the authors show that this elliptical ejecta is due to the curvature of the asteroid and makes kinetic momentum transfer less efficient.
Spaceflight 🚀
