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Did you feel the breeze? A few days ago, the small asteroid 2020 QG passed just 2,950 km above the Earth, the closest near-miss ever recorded! https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-small-asteroid-called-2020-qc-just-gave-earth-the-closest-near-miss-ever-seen
2/ The asteroid was 3-6 meters in diameter, so about the size of a big delivery truck, and was discovered a few hours *after* closest approach. Had it been aimed right at us it would’ve burned up high above the Earth’s surface. We were never in any danger from this wee rock.
3/ We get an event like this roughly once a year, but the frequency isn’t well known, so every time we see something like this it helps us understand better just how often it does happen.
4/ 2,950 km is *close*. Earth is about 13,000 km wide! It came so close that Earth’s gravity changed the orbit of 2020 QG significantly.
5/ This pass beats the previous record holding near-miss asteroid, 2011 CQ1, by 2,500 km. The *last* near miss we saw was in May, by asteroid 2020 JJ, which was also 3-6 meters wide.
6/ Reminder: We’re hit by 100 tons of meteoric material *per day*. Usually it’s in the form of tiny grains. Sometimes we get a boulder tossed into he mix too. These types of impacts aren’t dangerous, and in fact put on a pretty light show and also can give us meteorites to study!
7/ So these small rock near-misses teach us a lot about the asteroid population. If we see a bigger one coming, trust me, you’ll hear about it. Astronomers are a garrulous lot. And we’re looking for them, hard, even building spacecraft to look for them. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/nasa-will-build-and-fly-an-observatory-to-look-for-killer-asteroids
8/8 It’s important we look, and we’re getting better at it all the time. And there are plans to start investigating how to move dangerous ones out of the way, too. We take this pretty seriously, and for that I’m glad. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/a-small-asteroid-called-2020-qc-just-gave-earth-the-closest-near-miss-ever-seen
