Seriously, are there any asteroids headed our way, immediately? Thanks.?

Question

It seems we always hear about 'near misses' one or two days after the fact. If one were headed right for us, I would want to know so I could at least be with my family.

Answer 1

As of right now, there are no known asteroids heading towards the Earth that would be large enough to cause major damage. And they say we've probably charted most of the largest objects in the inner solar system by now, so it's not very likely we won't see a doomsday asteroid coming- in fact, we'd probably have plotted its course decades before the hit time. The most dangerous asteroids would probably be ones that somehow got off the Earth's orbital plane, because they are much harder to spot and could approach towards one of the poles, where there are fewer telescopes.

Over the years, there have been a few asteroid scares. However, in all the cases so far, further investigation revealed that the rocks' orbits did not take them on a collision course with the Earth, just somewhere nearby. The one with the highest chances at any one time was 2004 MN4, which at one point had about a 1 in 37 chance of hitting before new information verified that it would not hit the Earth. You can read about some cases like this on space.com:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/asteroid_threat_010823.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/asteroid_2030up_001104.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/asteroid_update_B_041227.html

Answer 2

None that we know about. But astronomers are now using computer controlled telescopes to automatically look for asteroids and over 100,000 new ones have been discovered in the last decade or so. Most of them are extremely small, especially all the ones noticed only after they pass close are a few hundred feet wide or less, so that even if they did hit it would be only a local disaster, like the recent Tsunami in south Asia. All asteroids big enough to cause world wide damage have been known for over 100 years and none of them can ever get closer to Earth than Mars does.

Answer 3

The sky has been mostly charted out by astronomers. The Asteroid Belt is where most of the asteroids of our solar system lie. They most orbit the sun in a circular somewhat elliptical pattern and rarely pose a threat to the earth in the current state, that does not mean one could stray and hit us, just means it would be rare. More then likely we would be hit by a comet as they are harder to track because they are so hard to see when they are at the aphelion. We can see some of the Kuiper belt, but the Oort cloud is where comets may come from.

Answer 4

These websites should help you sleep a ilttle easier at night.

Scroll halfway down this first one and it will show you "current events" regarding Near Earth Asteroids...
http://spaceweather.com/

This next one is a bit more comprehensive, and gives a forecast through April of next year...
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/

Just think what would happen if we knew the Earth was going to be nailed by an asteroid a few weeks before it happened. Absolute chaos! On a side note, I'd recommend the movie "Armageddon". It's a B-movie, but quite entertaining.

Peace!

Answer 5

The near misses you are talking about won't be near misses for quite sometime... Whenever scientists spot a new threat in the sky it takes them a few days to compute where it will travel in the next few years so the news is 'we've found a new asteroid that will head towards Earth' and it takes a couple of days to determine exactly how close it will get....

If one were to be on a course that would impact our planet chances are we'd know about it a few years before it reaches us....

Answer 6

The "asteroids" they communicate of could expend in our environment long earlier attaining the Earth's floor. The photograph voltaic device is plagued by using them, and we stumble upon them very regularly. Left over from planetary formation. there's a international team of astronomers who look for "close to Earth products" and that they have got got here across somewhat some, yet few actual pose achieveable. in the pursuits of finished disclosure, there is an asteroid named 99942 Apophis, that has an extremely tiny risk of impact in 2029. even however, we are able to grasp for particular if it is going to hit or omit whilst it makes it rather is next close bypass in 2013. could the hot information determine an impact, we've very boring plans in place to handle the asteroid possibility, and go away Hollywood directors screaming because of the fact it rather is not any longer very action-y. some concepts that have been proposed incorporate: Gravity tug - a tiny satellite tv for pc that makes use of an ion engine to maintain a relentless distance from the asteroid, and utilising the gravitational stress between the asteroid and satellite tv for pc to tug it out of its present day trajectory. portray the asteroid - portray the asteroid black could reason it to soak up greater photons, and subsequently the photons' momentum, moving its trajectory. See, boring. you're secure. Scientists and Engineers are difficult at paintings making useful issues like those stay boring.

Answer 7

We don't know! There has to be some areas not being monitored. That's why you hear about it, after the fact. I have read that in some instances, we may only get 3 or 4 days warning
if "Nemesis", (earth destroyer) comes our way.
I am keeping a bottle of liquor and some pills on hand just in case, because I don't own a gun.
I might as well go out HAPPY.

Answer 8

Actually you hear about them after the fact because you rely on major media for your information. Check out some other science websites for information about things that are in progress and we see coming. There probably is, but we can only keep track of a very small percentage of the sky at once, and we won't know until it gets here.

Answer 9

Wait - don't move, let me go look.

Nope, don't see anything.

Sorry for the sarcasm but, with the extreme volume of space (pun intended) to search and the total lack of viable seach tools other than telescopes, missing an asteroid is very easy.

Answer 10

Yes, we are being attacked by Asteroids everyday, but because most of those Asteroids are smaller they dissolve befor hitting Earth.

Thanks to our Thick Atmosphere, without it we could have been Extinct thousand years ago.