How "asteroid detectives" are protecting Earth from potential danger
Astronomers believe that 14,000 undiscovered near-Earth objects like asteroids, large enough to cause damage, could be in space.
Recently, NASA was tracking a large asteroid flying past Earth known as the so-called "city killer."
"This one got a lot of attention because it rose to a threat level that we just have not seen very often. We knew we had to monitor it and try to understand everything we could about it, not just where it is, but what is it made of? What size is it?" astronomer Nick Moskovitz said.
Moskovitz says he's become an "asteroid detective," working to protect Earth from a possible disaster.
"Find them before they find you. The sooner you find them, the more options you have for deflecting potentially hazardous asteroids," Moskovitz said.
In 2022, NASA performed a first-of-its-kind test. The agency intentionally crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid, nudging it just enough to change its trajectory. The mission gave the space agency a tool that could potentially be used to counter an asteroid heading for our planet.
"It's the only natural disaster that we could potentially prevent," said NASA's acting planetary defense officer Kelly Fast. "And if you were to find an impact threat to Earth well enough in advance, then you wouldn't have to deflect it much for it to be able to miss the Earth in the future."
The Lowell Discovery Telescope in northern Arizona is one of a handful around the world searching the night sky for asteroids that could potentially threaten Earth.
"We can see orders of magnitude fainter than you would be able to with your naked eye," Moskovitz explained.
2024 YR4, "city killer" asteroid
Since December, Moskovitz had the Lowell Discovery Telescope trained on the 2024 YR4 asteroid. Scientists at one point projected it had about a 3% chance of hitting Earth in 2032.
2024 YR4 is now expected to miss Earth and "no longer poses a significant threat," according to a recent analysis from NASA. It has approximately a 0.004% chance of hitting the planet in eight years, new calculations show.
"The latest observations have further reduced the uncertainty of its future trajectory, and the range of possible locations the asteroid could be on Dec. 22, 2032, has moved farther away from the Earth," NASA said.
However, there is a 1.7% chance that it could impact the moon.
Previous impacts of asteroids
In 2013, a small asteroid, just 60 feet wide, exploded over Russia, injuring more than 1,600 people.
An asteroid big enough to wipe out an entire city crashed to Earth 50,000 years ago in what is now northern Arizona. It left a crater that was three quarters of a mile wide and 600 feet deep.
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Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Asteroids with ‘unstable orbits' hide around Venus—do they threaten Earth?
Venus has groupies—a family of asteroids that share its orbit, either trailing it or leading it as the planet revolves around the sun. Researchers have known that such stealthy space rocks might exist for years, but now, a pair of papers (one published in a journal, and one a pre-print undergoing peer-review) conclude that some might develop unstable orbits and, over a very long period of time, arch toward Earth. But despite what several histrionic headlines have claimed, Earth is not at risk of one of these asteroids suddenly sneaking up on us and vaporizing a city. While some of these asteroids could be large enough to cause this sort of damage, there is no evidence whatsoever suggesting any of these Venus-pursuing asteroids are currently heading our way. 'I wouldn't say that these objects are not dangerous,' says Valerio Carruba, an asteroid dynamicist at the São Paulo State University in Brazil and a co-author of both studies. 'But I don't think there is any reason to panic.' These studies simply highlight that asteroids near Venus have the potential to fly our way on sometime in the next few thousand years or so. 'The likelihood of one colliding with Earth any time soon is extremely low,' says Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. who was not involved with the new research. 'There isn't too much to be worried about here.' The real problem, though, is that asteroids like this are remarkably difficult to find, and you can't protect yourself against a danger you cannot see. Fortunately, in the next few years, two of the most advanced observatories ever built are coming online. And together, they will find more asteroids—including those hiding near Venus—than the sum total already identified by the world's telescopes. While the Japanese and European space agencies mostly request time on busy telescopes to search for these space rocks, NASA leads the pack: It funds a network of observatories solely dedicated to finding sketchy-looking asteroids. Planetary defenders are chiefly concerned about near-Earth asteroids. As the name suggests, these have orbits that hew close to Earth's own. Many of these asteroids were removed from the largely stable belt between Mars and Jupiter, either through the chaotic gravitational pull of the planets (often Jupiter, as it's the most massive) or through asteroid-on-asteroid collisions. If one gets within 4.6 million miles of Earth's orbit, there's a chance that, over time, both orbits cross and a collision becomes possible. And if that asteroid is 460 feet long, it's big enough to plunge through the atmosphere and (with a direct hit) destroy a city. Combined, these characteristics describe 'potentially hazardous asteroids'—and finding them is of paramount importance. Asteroids are first found because of the sunlight they reflect. That works well for most, but there are known to be asteroids hiding interior to Earth's orbit, toward the direction of the sun. And that's a problem. Astronomers seeking out these asteroids cannot just point their telescopes directly at the sun: It would be like trying to see a lit match in front of a nuclear explosion. Instead, they look in the vicinity of the sun in the few minutes just after sunset, or just before sunrise. Not only are these surveys severely time-limited, but by aiming close to the horizon, they are peering through more of the Earth's atmosphere, which distorts what they are looking at. 'All of these factors make it hard to search for and discover asteroids near Venus' orbit,' says Sheppard. (Here's how researchers track asteroids that might hit Earth.) Asteroids have occasionally been spotted in this sun-bleached corner of space. And twenty of them have been found scooting along the same orbital highway Venus uses to orbit the sun. These are known as co-orbital asteroids; similar rocks can be found either following or trailing other planets, most notably Jupiter. Co-orbiting asteroids tend to cluster around several gravitationally stable sections, known as Lagrange points, along the planet's orbital path. But over a timescale of about 12,000 years or so, it's thought that the Venus co-orbital asteroids can dramatically alter their orbits. They remain on the same orbital path as Venus, but instead of maintaining a circular orbit, they get creative: Some migrate to a different Lagrange point, while others zip about in a horseshoe pattern around several Lagrange points. Some of these new, exotic orbits become quite stretched-out and elliptical—and, in some cases, these orbits can eventually bring these asteroids closer to Earth. When they do, 'there is a higher chance of a collision,' says Carruba. In their first study, published in the journal Icarus earlier this year, Carruba and his team looked at the 20 known co-orbital asteroids of Venus. Their simulations forecast how their orbits would evolve over time and show that three of the space rocks—each between 1,000 and 1,300 feet or so—could approach within 46,500 miles of Earth's orbit. (For reference, the moon is an average of 240,000 miles from our planet.) That proximity may make them potentially hazardous asteroids. But there's no need to worry—it can take as long as 12,000 years for an asteroid to end up on an elliptical, near-Earth orbit. Perhaps they will be a problem for our very, very distant descendants. The team's latest study, uploaded to the pre-print server arXiv last month, delves into how easy it might be for any of Venus' co-orbital asteroids—including those astronomers have yet to find—to end up on these precarious orbits. To find out, they created virtual asteroids and simulated their many potential orbital voyages 36,000 years into the future. Many things could perturb the orbits of asteroids over that many years, so any truly accurate predictions are impossible. But the simulations came to some broad conclusions. The first is that a Venus co-orbital asteroid is more likely to approach Earth if it switches from a circular to a considerably elongated orbit—it's zooming over a larger patch of the inner solar system, including our own planet's neighborhood. The second, more surprising thing, is that some asteroids still manage to reach near-Earth space even they start out with only a mildly stretched-out orbit. It seems that their chaotic journeys through space, filled with gravitational disturbances, can still end up throwing them our way. But to be clear, these potentially worrisome orbits develop over the course of many millennia. 'This is not something to be alarmed about, as these asteroids are still relatively dynamically stable on human timescales,' says Sheppard. (These five asteroids pose the highest risk to Earth.) For Marco Fenucci, a near-Earth object dynamicist at the European Space Agency, the paper raises awareness about these relatively mysterious asteroids in Venus' orbit. And that is a good point to make, he adds: We don't know much about these asteroids, including their population size, their dimensions, and their orbits, because we struggle to find them with today's telescopes. Two upcoming facilities are about to make this task considerably easier. The first, the U.S.-owned Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is set to officially come online in the next few weeks. With a huge field-of-view, it can see huge swathes of the night sky at once, and its giant nest of mirrors can gather so much starlight than even the smallest, faintest objects can be seen. In just three to six months, the observatory could find as many as a million new asteroids, effectively doubling the current total. Meg Schwamb, a planetary scientist at Queen's University Belfast who was not involved with the new research, explains that Rubin will also conduct its own twilight surveys, the very sort used today to search for near-Venus asteroids. If these surveys are conducted over the next decade, 'Rubin could find as many as 40 to 50 percent of all objects larger than about [1,150 feet] in the interior-to-Venus-orbit population,' says Mario Jurić, an astronomer at the University of Washington and who was not involved with the new research. But, as with all ground-based optical telescopes, Rubin will still have the sun's glare, and Earth's atmosphere, to contend with. As long as the federal government decides to continue to fund the mission—something that is not guaranteed—NASA will also launch a dedicated asteroid-hunting space observatory, the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, in the next few years. Unobstructed by Earth's atmosphere, it will seek out space rocks by viewing them through a highly-sensitive infrared scope, meaning it can see those hidden by the luminous sun. Even those asteroids sneaking around near Venus won't be able to hide from NEO Surveyor. And, finally, says Carruba, 'we can see if the impact threat is real, or not.'
National Geographic
39 minutes ago
- National Geographic
Asteroids with ‘unstable orbits' hide around Venus—do they threaten Earth?
NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured this image showing the nightside surface of Venus. A family of asteroids share the planet's orbit, and two new studies suggest that one day the space rocks could theoretically pose a danger to Earth. Photograph by NASA/APL/NRL Venus has groupies—a family of asteroids that share its orbit, either trailing it or leading it as the planet revolves around the sun. Researchers have known that such stealthy space rocks might exist for years, but now, a pair of papers (one published in a journal, and one a pre-print undergoing peer-review) conclude that some might develop unstable orbits and, over a very long period of time, arch toward Earth. But despite what several histrionic headlines have claimed, Earth is not at risk of one of these asteroids suddenly sneaking up on us and vaporizing a city. While some of these asteroids could be large enough to cause this sort of damage, there is no evidence whatsoever suggesting any of these Venus-pursuing asteroids are currently heading our way. 'I wouldn't say that these objects are not dangerous,' says Valerio Carruba, an asteroid dynamicist at the São Paulo State University in Brazil and a co-author of both studies. 'But I don't think there is any reason to panic.' These studies simply highlight that asteroids near Venus have the potential to fly our way on sometime in the next few thousand years or so. 'The likelihood of one colliding with Earth any time soon is extremely low,' says Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. who was not involved with the new research. 'There isn't too much to be worried about here.' Asteroids around Venus, shown in the background above during a 2012 transit, are difficult to track because they fall inside Earth's orbit and are obscured by the sun's glare. Research suggests that some of the asteroids that share Venus' orbit are large enough to take out a city on Earth. Illustration by David A. Hardy, Futures: 50 Years In Space/Science Photo Library The real problem, though, is that asteroids like this are remarkably difficult to find, and you can't protect yourself against a danger you cannot see. Fortunately, in the next few years, two of the most advanced observatories ever built are coming online. And together, they will find more asteroids—including those hiding near Venus—than the sum total already identified by the world's telescopes. Concealed by sunlight While the Japanese and European space agencies mostly request time on busy telescopes to search for these space rocks, NASA leads the pack: It funds a network of observatories solely dedicated to finding sketchy-looking asteroids. Planetary defenders are chiefly concerned about near-Earth asteroids. As the name suggests, these have orbits that hew close to Earth's own. Many of these asteroids were removed from the largely stable belt between Mars and Jupiter, either through the chaotic gravitational pull of the planets (often Jupiter, as it's the most massive) or through asteroid-on-asteroid collisions. If one gets within 4.6 million miles of Earth's orbit, there's a chance that, over time, both orbits cross and a collision becomes possible. And if that asteroid is 460 feet long, it's big enough to plunge through the atmosphere and (with a direct hit) destroy a city. Combined, these characteristics describe 'potentially hazardous asteroids'—and finding them is of paramount importance. Venus appears above giant sandstone cliffs amid the sand dunes of Tassili National Park in Algeria. Photograph by Babak Tafreshi, Nat Geo Image Collection Asteroids are first found because of the sunlight they reflect. That works well for most, but there are known to be asteroids hiding interior to Earth's orbit, toward the direction of the sun. And that's a problem. Astronomers seeking out these asteroids cannot just point their telescopes directly at the sun: It would be like trying to see a lit match in front of a nuclear explosion. Instead, they look in the vicinity of the sun in the few minutes just after sunset, or just before sunrise. Not only are these surveys severely time-limited, but by aiming close to the horizon, they are peering through more of the Earth's atmosphere, which distorts what they are looking at. 'All of these factors make it hard to search for and discover asteroids near Venus' orbit,' says Sheppard. (Here's how researchers track asteroids that might hit Earth.) The invisible Venusian fleet Asteroids have occasionally been spotted in this sun-bleached corner of space. And twenty of them have been found scooting along the same orbital highway Venus uses to orbit the sun. These are known as co-orbital asteroids; similar rocks can be found either following or trailing other planets, most notably Jupiter. Co-orbiting asteroids tend to cluster around several gravitationally stable sections, known as Lagrange points, along the planet's orbital path. But over a timescale of about 12,000 years or so, it's thought that the Venus co-orbital asteroids can dramatically alter their orbits. They remain on the same orbital path as Venus, but instead of maintaining a circular orbit, they get creative: Some migrate to a different Lagrange point, while others zip about in a horseshoe pattern around several Lagrange points. Some of these new, exotic orbits become quite stretched-out and elliptical—and, in some cases, these orbits can eventually bring these asteroids closer to Earth. When they do, 'there is a higher chance of a collision,' says Carruba. In their first study, published in the journal Icarus earlier this year, Carruba and his team looked at the 20 known co-orbital asteroids of Venus. Their simulations forecast how their orbits would evolve over time and show that three of the space rocks—each between 1,000 and 1,300 feet or so—could approach within 46,500 miles of Earth's orbit. (For reference, the moon is an average of 240,000 miles from our planet.) That proximity may make them potentially hazardous asteroids. But there's no need to worry—it can take as long as 12,000 years for an asteroid to end up on an elliptical, near-Earth orbit. Perhaps they will be a problem for our very, very distant descendants. The asteroids that hang out in the orbit of Venus (shown above in simulated color) are largely unknown. This illustration shows the orbits of the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos (labelled) and another 2,200 potentially hazardous asteroids (fainter lines) around the sun. Illustration by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Science Photo Library The team's latest study, uploaded to the pre-print server arXiv last month, delves into how easy it might be for any of Venus' co-orbital asteroids—including those astronomers have yet to find—to end up on these precarious orbits. To find out, they created virtual asteroids and simulated their many potential orbital voyages 36,000 years into the future. Many things could perturb the orbits of asteroids over that many years, so any truly accurate predictions are impossible. But the simulations came to some broad conclusions. The first is that a Venus co-orbital asteroid is more likely to approach Earth if it switches from a circular to a considerably elongated orbit—it's zooming over a larger patch of the inner solar system, including our own planet's neighborhood. The second, more surprising thing, is that some asteroids still manage to reach near-Earth space even they start out with only a mildly stretched-out orbit. It seems that their chaotic journeys through space, filled with gravitational disturbances, can still end up throwing them our way. But to be clear, these potentially worrisome orbits develop over the course of many millennia. 'This is not something to be alarmed about, as these asteroids are still relatively dynamically stable on human timescales,' says Sheppard. (These five asteroids pose the highest risk to Earth.) A new asteroid-hunting dawn For Marco Fenucci, a near-Earth object dynamicist at the European Space Agency, the paper raises awareness about these relatively mysterious asteroids in Venus' orbit. And that is a good point to make, he adds: We don't know much about these asteroids, including their population size, their dimensions, and their orbits, because we struggle to find them with today's telescopes. Two upcoming facilities are about to make this task considerably easier. The first, the U.S.-owned Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is set to officially come online in the next few weeks. With a huge field-of-view, it can see huge swathes of the night sky at once, and its giant nest of mirrors can gather so much starlight than even the smallest, faintest objects can be seen. In just three to six months, the observatory could find as many as a million new asteroids, effectively doubling the current total. Meg Schwamb, a planetary scientist at Queen's University Belfast who was not involved with the new research, explains that Rubin will also conduct its own twilight surveys, the very sort used today to search for near-Venus asteroids. If these surveys are conducted over the next decade, 'Rubin could find as many as 40 to 50 percent of all objects larger than about [1,150 feet] in the interior-to-Venus-orbit population,' says Mario Jurić, an astronomer at the University of Washington and who was not involved with the new research. But, as with all ground-based optical telescopes, Rubin will still have the sun's glare, and Earth's atmosphere, to contend with. As long as the federal government decides to continue to fund the mission—something that is not guaranteed—NASA will also launch a dedicated asteroid-hunting space observatory, the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor, in the next few years. Unobstructed by Earth's atmosphere, it will seek out space rocks by viewing them through a highly-sensitive infrared scope, meaning it can see those hidden by the luminous sun. Even those asteroids sneaking around near Venus won't be able to hide from NEO Surveyor. And, finally, says Carruba, 'we can see if the impact threat is real, or not.'
Forbes
39 minutes ago
- Forbes
Experts Warn Of Decade-Long Setback After Trump Cuts HIV Vaccine Research
NEW YORK - DECEMBER 1: Marina Kemelman, Research Associate at the AIDS Vaccine Design and ... More Development Laboratory, collects bacteria transfected with DNA as part of research at the laboratory's campus in the former Brooklyn Army Terminal December 1, 2008 in New York City. The laboratory, seeking a vaccine to prevent the spread of AIDS, is part of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (or IAVI), a global not-for-profit, public-private partnership working to accelerate the development of a vaccine to prevent HIV infection and AIDS. December 1 is the 20th annual World AIDS Day around the world. (Photo by) It was a rare moment of bipartisan unity. Standing before a joint session of Congress in January 2019, President Donald Trump boldly pledged to eradicate a disease that claims one life every single minute: HIV/AIDS. 'Scientific breakthroughs have brought a once-distant dream within reach,' Trump exclaimed. 'My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans to make the needed commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years. We have made incredible strides.' Then, he added, 'we will defeat AIDS in America and beyond.' That was then and this is now. Last week, a group of scientists working on promising HIV vaccine studies were reportedly informed that the administration plans to revoke their research grants in a move experts warn could set the movement back years. When the global AIDS crisis peaked in the early 2000s, roughly 5,000 people were dying every single day from the disease. Thanks to the leadership of governments, the private sector, and philanthropists, the world invested more resources into the AIDS fight than ever before. This spurred nearly two decades of progress—not just against AIDS, but across global health broadly. Since 2004, AIDS-related deaths have been reduced by roughly two-thirds. But recently, progress has slowed. Covid-19 proved a major health disruption that reversed years of hard-fought gains. Efforts to reduce mother-to-child transmission rates have slowed. Global health funding is now under siege not just in the United States, but across Europe, too. And the world is no longer on track to meet critical 2030 AIDS targets. The great paradox here is that never in human history has there been more tools available to fight AIDS. The cost of antiretroviral drugs has fallen from $27 a day in 2000 to as little as 10 cents a day. Now, experts say what's needed to get the fight back on track—and eventually end the threat for good—isn't just better diagnostics and therapeutics, but long acting preventatives. Fortunately, it's an area that's seen great progress. Dubbed the 'breakthrough of the year' in 2024 by the journal Science, Gilead Science's lenacapavir is a long-acting injectable vaccine that has proven incredibly effective at preventing HIV infections. It represents a major step forward from the prevalent pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) pill and mitigates some of the major privacy, stigma, and adherence issues that come with taking daily medication. The next step forward could be a vaccine with even longer immunity—one that gives patients lifetime protection. Researchers have been pursuing this laudable goal for years, but last week, the Trump administration announced plans to terminate research grants at two preeminent institutions, the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute, totaling $258 million. The researchers were told that the administration wanted 'to go with currently available approaches to eliminate HIV.' On the other hand, global health experts are warning that without new resources, President Trump's promise to end HIV within ten years is destined to fail—and when combined with the administration's other actions to cut and halt global health programs, HIV infections and deaths could actually rise for the first time in decades under his watch. 'I find it very disappointing that, at this critical juncture, the funding for highly successful H.I.V. vaccine research programs should be pulled,' Dennis Burton, an immunologist at Scripps, told The New York Times. Meanwhile AIDS groups, including the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition described the decision as inconceivable and shortsighted. The grant news marks the latest blow to the HIV/AIDS community, which has endured devastating domestic and global funding cuts in Trump's second term. San Francisco, which was one of the first epicenters of the domestic AIDS fight, has long relied on funding from the federal government to support community-based health programs that help reduce HIV transmission. These initiatives have helped the city make outstanding progress against the disease, but Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grant delays have threatened testing, treatment, and care continuity. Even southern states which President Trump won decisively, and which account for 50% of all new U.S. HIV infections, have not been spared. According to the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), cuts to domestic HIV prevention programs could spark over 14,000 additional deaths from AIDS-related causes and 143,000 new HIV infections. Earlier this year, HHS closed its Office of Infectious Diseases & HIV policy that quarterbacked the government's domestic AIDS response. Abroad, global health programs have fared even worse. In January, the Trump administration halted funding for The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a bipartisan program that has saved over 26 million lives. In a congressional hearing last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that, '85 percent of recipients are now receiving PEPFAR services.' He also said that no one has died as a result of the aid freeze, a notion journalists and health experts scoff at. According to Brooke Nichols, an infectious disease mathematical modeler and health economist at Boston University, over 57,000 adults and 6,000 children have died as a result of the PEPFAR funding freeze and the discontinuation of global health programs. Even if those numbers are inflated, as some have contended, the number of lives needlessly lost is still likely in the tens of thousands. While some experts remain hopeful that the recent cuts will eventually be restored, the prospect of an AIDS-free future that President Trump himself once espoused appears grim. "This is a decision with consequences that will linger. This is a setback of probably a decade for HIV vaccine research," Burton warned.
