Potentially dangerous asteroids

Despite the fact that the danger posed by asteroids is estimated in a planetary sense as not serious (the creators of Armageddon or Chelyabinsk will certainly argue with this), NASA still tracks the trajectories of a number of large celestial bodies, although it complains about the lack of financing.

Asteroids are monitored according to the following principles: if the object is located or will be at a distance less than 7.4 million km (4.6 million miles) and whose diameter exceeds 100 meters (350 feet), the agency classifies it as a “potentially dangerous object” (potentially hazardous objects - PHO). If it turns out that we are talking about a solid body (in other words, an asteroid), then the object is reclassified as a “potentially dangerous asteroid” (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids - PHA) and is included in the list of continuous observation. Although this list (you can look at it here ; you can also see 3D visualization of the trajectories there) and is limited by the financial capabilities of NASA, at the moment it includes 1397 positions.

The picture in the title of the post presents a reduced version of a graphic image prepared by NASA engineers for a visual representation of what exactly you have to deal with in the process of tracking an asteroid threat. The complexity of technical measures is becoming more tangible for taxpayers and an awareness of how the Earth has been carrying the last couple of thousands of years, more obvious.
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Under the cat there is a jpg-version of the scheme with a size of 3254 x 2613 pixels and a link to a full-length TIFF image of 25.52 MB.


Original link.



Full-res TIFF

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