In the last hours, NASA warned of the flyby of a “potentially dangerous” asteroid near planet Earth, which alerted thousands of users on social media. Among them the owner of Tesla, Space Elon Muskhe shared an apocalyptic reflection on humanity’s fate and the only chance he believed it had for survival.
As is customary, the billionaire businessman did not miss the opportunity to comment on NASA’s announcement through the agency Current drive laboratory (JPL) dedicated to tracking and predicting the direction of various space objects that could impact Earth.
For him Tuesday 17th and Wednesday 18th A laboratory located in the state of California in the United States warned of the arrival of five asteroids, two of them of significant size, which would fly by at different distances but close to Earth. The main one was the so-called 2024 ON, which would happen just then 1,000,000 kilometers, which is three times the distance between the planet and the moon.
JPL classified it as “potentially hazardous” as a result of information gained from various observations that gave it a size comparable to that of a football stadium, 290 meters in diameterand at impressive speed 36,000 km/halmost 29 times faster than the speed of sound.
Although both NASA and JPL indicated that there was no risk of an impact, speculation about a possible asteroid with similar characteristics that may be in Earth’s crosshairs was not long in coming.
Musk was categorical about the future of the planet, stating: “One of these days, a large comet will hit Earth and destroy almost all life, as has happened many times in the past. Eventually the Sun will expand enough to boil the oceans and destroy all life“.
It was there that he pondered the only possibility of survival that humanity understands. “Become a space civilization or die: those are the two options“, a hill.
Musk’s prophecy is read in the context of investments that the businessman has been making for more than 15 years in space exploration through his company Space to space or taking sightseeing trips to the International Space Station.
However, Musk’s short-term plans focus on developing enough technology to enable trips to other planets. The first would be Mars with the intention of establishing a colony there and expanding humanity’s reach. To this end, at least two expeditions based on the use of some of the most powerful rockets in the Space X arsenal are planned for the next years, in collaboration with NASA, but at the moment there is no exact date for their implementation. .
In addition to 2024 ON, there are four other small bodies, but they will pass at an even greater distance, warned for this Tuesday and Wednesday. All are smaller in size and do not fall into the “potentially dangerous” category. Along with 2024 ON comes the new year 2024 and 2024 RR16. The first of these measures 16 meters and will go to 1,100,000 kilometers. Meanwhile, the other does the same at a distance 3,610,000 kilometers and has a similar size of approx 17 metro.
Finally, the same American observation laboratory detected two asteroids that will pass in the immediate vicinity of the Earth on Wednesday. Autumn/Winter 2013 and 2024 RZ13. They each visit a planet at a safe distance 2,020,000 y 3,950,000 accordingly and have size 155 y 16 metro.
According to JPL, near-Earth objects are asteroids and comets whose orbits place them within 195,000,000 kilometers of the Sun, meaning they can orbit around Earth’s orbit. Most near-Earth objects are asteroids ranging in size from a few meters to nearly 40 kilometers.
Most near-Earth objects have orbits that don’t bring them too close to Earth and therefore pose no impact risk, but a small fraction of them, called potentially dangerous asteroids, require more attention. These objects are defined as asteroids that are greater than 140 meters in size with orbits that bring them within 7,500,00 kilometers of Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
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