Surprise: an asteroid impact on Earth occurs twice a year on average

The fact that none of the asteroids whose impacts are visible in the video distributed by the B612 Foundation were not discovered in advance is proof that the only thing that prevents a catastrophe from a deadly asteroid is only blind luck, says John Lu, a former astronaut and now the CEO of the B612 Foundation.

When we think of asteroid impacts on Earth only a few come to mind - in particular the one that exploded over Siberia and leveled a huge forest inTongska In 1908 and another one that exploded over the town of Chelyabinsk and whose airfoil caused glass to shatter. Both took place in Russia, the largest country in terms of territory on Earth, and they had eyewitnesses - at least in the latter case there were even quite a few eyewitnesses due to the large distribution of cameras on vehicles.

Although 105 years passed between these two events, in between it turns out that many asteroid impacts took place around the world that humans did not witness, if only because of their remote location. Impact events of this magnitude could cause property damage, injuries or worse if they occurred in cities.

And here is an example of some such attacks that have occurred in the last 13 years. A video released today by the B612 Foundation illustrated data collected by the nuclear test monitoring networks. They reveal 26 explosive events recorded between 2001 and 2013 that were not caused by nuclear explosions, meaning an average of two explosions per year. These had to be asteroid impacts, from 1 to 600 kilotons. For comparison, the power of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima and caused the end of the Second World War was 15 kilotons and that of Nagasaki - 20 kilotons.

Former NASA astronauts Ed Lowe and Tom Jones, who flew the shuttles, as well as an older astronaut - Bill Anders who flew the Apollo 8 spacecraft presented the video at an event held at the Museum of Aviation in Seattle, Washington.

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• The Tungaska event was caused by a comet
• Asteroid impact and the extinction of the dinosaurs, we must learn from the past
• Hundreds injured in a meteor explosion in the air in Russia
• Before the asteroid catches us with our pants down

Lou, the CEO and one of the founders of the B612 Foundation, seeks to increase public awareness of near-Earth objects with the goal of eventually building and launching Sentinel, an infrared space telescope that will scan the sky to identify as-yet unknown objects whose orbits cross the Earth's orbit.

As of today, there is no dynamic map of the inner solar system showing the positions and trajectories of these asteroids that could hit the Earth. According to him, Earth's inhabitants are literally flying around the sun with their eyes closed. "Asteroids have hit the Earth in the past, and they will hit again - unless we do something about it," he told him.

The editors of Universe Today emphasize that although the illustration is new, the data in it is not new. Previous surveys of the population of near-Earth objects have already discovered a considerable amount of such objects and calculated the chances of direct impact from them, among other things using the WISE space telescope and ground telescopes.

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