News JVTech This asteroid has just crashed on Earth, science predicted it and it’s a revolution!
Published on 30/11/2022 at 12:40
The ESA has just published a paper detailing the analyzes of the trajectory of the asteroid which has just crashed into Earth. Astrophysicists were thus able to calculate the exact impact zone of the asteroid. A real scientific feat!
Anticipating asteroids before their impact on Earth
One can wonder how it is not normal to be able to calculate the exact trajectory of a celestial body. The reality is however much more complicated and being able to know where an asteroid will crash is a real feat, even in 2022.
The celestial body named 2022 WJ1 has just hit the Earth, as expected, in Canada. It all started with ESA software predicting a 20% chance of the less than one meter asteroid crashing into our planet. The estimate gives an impact area in North America. Other event reporting programs also activated and did the same analysis.
Observers then took it into their heads to detect the exact area of impact. The small asteroid was to arrive between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, at the level of Niagara Falls. The scheduled time was 9:27 a.m. on the French time zone.
A perfect prediction of the asteroid
Everything was perfect, the impact zone and the time of entry into the atmosphere were perfectly calculated. We were thus able to observe above the Canadian sky a magnificent trail behind the asteroid which caught fire when entering our atmosphere.
The celestial object has largely disintegrated, although it is likely that some fragment reached land.
In the end, this teaches us a little more about the analysis of the trajectory of objects coming from space. Essential calculations, because more than 30,000 asteroids have an orbit that could cross that of the Earth. Their size is often small and does not pose a danger to us. Moreover, we know 95% of the large celestial bodies, even if there is one that scientists have not yet found. The probability of ending up in Armageddon is therefore very low.
On the other hand, we know that while a catastrophic asteroid impact is unlikely, it is not impossible for an asteroid to hit a city and cause heavy damage. It is in this type of situation that it will be necessary to analyze the trajectories to either decide it before it arrives in our atmosphere or in the worst case, to evacuate the zone in time.
To get an idea of the scale of gravity of an asteroid impact, a body 1 meter touching the surface is as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. At 100 meters in diameter, it is the Tsar Bomb and between 10 and 15 km it is the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
