
A working observatory which tracks "near-Earth objects" - MindGods
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53082475
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scraplab
I made a silly Twitter bot, @lowflyingrocks, that announces close passes of
NEOs.

[https://twitter.com/lowflyingrocks](https://twitter.com/lowflyingrocks)

It tweets everything within 0.2AU at the moment of minimum distance. Not that
close, but enough to keep it regular.

Every now and again there’s a good one!

[https://twitter.com/lowflyingrocks/status/962090981796536320](https://twitter.com/lowflyingrocks/status/962090981796536320)

It’s written in Elixir, code over here:

[https://github.com/tomtaylor/lowflyingrocks](https://github.com/tomtaylor/lowflyingrocks)

~~~
kyberias
Would be nice if it also rendered an animated GIF showing how close it went.

~~~
nissarup
I can't imagine how large a .2AU GIF would be.

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dleavitt
This appears to be a human interest piece (specifically a local Welsh one)
rather than science journalism. A quick check of the Wikipedia page for
"Asteroid impact avoidance" indicates that this is a well-established and
well-funded field, and that the lone hero narrative is for effect only.

It would have been interesting to know what people inside the field think - is
it like some areas of astronomy where having lots of amateur eyes on the
problem is key? Or is this guy sort of a crank?

~~~
echelon
Lots of questions from a layman.

What's our level of confidence that we'll be able to find something that can
wipe out cities or civilization?

What's our percentage of detection? Does it vary by size, velocity, and orbit?

How much lead time do we have? Years? Days? Hours?

What can we do about it?

Will we ever attain a complete picture of asteroids in orbit? (Assuming there
are no collisions that alter trajectories?)

What's the probability we'll be hit by something big within our lifetime?

~~~
wizzwizz4
Answers from a layperson, while you wait for a proper answer:

1\. Low, and high, respectively.

2\. Almost all very big stuff, most big stuff, some medium stuff and very
little small stuff, where "medium" is around the size of the Chelyabinsk one
(~20m).

3\. Decades for very big stuff, years for big stuff, very very variable for
everything else.

4\. Nothing. Plenty, in theory, but we haven't got around to setting any of it
up yet. Knocking them sideways so they miss us is the current best bet, iirc.

5\. No.

6\. Low, assuming you're not going to live past your 90s (which is a
potentially dubious assumption).

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sammalloy
The article strangely neglected to mention that June 30 is Asteroid Day:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Day)

“Asteroid Day aims to raise awareness about asteroids and what can be done to
protect the Earth, its families, communities, and future generations from a
catastrophic event.”

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winrid
My understanding is the amount of money we spend on this kind of defense is
hilariously low. Like, less than the cost of running a McDonalds low.

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mturmon
NASA has a mandate to address the NEO problem. See
[https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/](https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/)

The main tool is change detection in robotic optical telescope surveys, which
have scientific uses as well.

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UI_at_80x24
When I was a pre-teen I witnessed a phenomenal event that I never saw
discussed on the evening news the next day. I saw a meteor skip off the
atmosphere.

It was the summertime (northern hemisphere) around the year 1982. I was
'camping' in the backyard with a friend and while we were running around the
neighbourhood we saw a very large rocky object in space.

We were facing south and at an angle between 20-45 degrees above the horizon
there was a large (size of tennis ball at arm's length) orange-red object
covered in impact craters moving towards the horizon. The object bounced twice
and then disappeared in a westerly direction past the horizon. The bounce (or
skip) was small (maybe half the diameter of the meteor).

The most interesting bits that stick out to me 40+ years later:

-It was a very bright and clear orange/red. (Which I now know is because it was in the Earths shadow like during a lunar eclipse.)

-It was covered in impact craters. As distinct and varied as you see on the moon.

~~~
echelon
> -It was covered in impact craters. As distinct and varied as you see on the
> moon.

Are you sure you aren't misremembering or embellishing your memory? That's an
incredible level of detail. That sort of resolution isn't even seen in the
Chelyabinsk meteor (it was a fireball), and that created a lot of physical
damage.

> there was a large (size of tennis ball at arm's length) orange-red object
> covered in impact craters moving towards the horizon.

That's obscenely large. Something that massive would have caused all sorts of
damage. People would have noticed.

~~~
UI_at_80x24
I of course have to conceed to the possibility that I am not remembering it
accurately; I sincerely don't think so.

I don't think it entered the atmosphere (I never witnessed any atmospheric
entry flames or fireball, I think it missed us (which is why I'm bringing it
up here related to 'Near Earth' items.

~~~
DoctorOetker
you probably saw _something_ , do you still have contact with the friend? does
he recall the event?

regarding embellishment, if 2 people witness a fleeting (not immediately
explainable event) observation, they will typically confirm having also seen
facet X or property Y, for not wanting to have missed out, when such a thing
happens its best that all parties immediately write down for themselves in as
much detail as they can what they think they saw "lock the doors" without
consulting each other.

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mobilio
I still remember Armageddon intro: "It happen before and will happen again.
It's just a question of when?"

~~~
imafish
Yeah. True then, and true now.

You could say the same about pandemics. People have warned - but nothing
really happens until the threat is imminent.

~~~
tim333
There's some fun stuff we could be doing re the asteroids. Maybe send a
mission up to deflect a non threatening one to check the tech works. If Musk's
starship gets working that could provide a platform to lug some asteroid
deflecting tech into orbit.

~~~
imafish
This is already in works:

[https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart](https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart)

