A space rock gave the earth a close shave Sunday.
No one saw small asteroids 2020QG arrive, but it passed through our planet as close as anything we ever saw could go on.
According to NASA’s database of objects in the Earth’s orbit, the space rock with cars flew about 4,778 miles from the center of our planet. That means it would have been less than 1,000 miles above our heads at its closest point, lower in altitude than almost any art satellite in orbit.
It currently has the space for closest approach in the database, which dates back a century.
Now for the kicker – 2020 QG, who also went through the identifier ZTF0DxQ before receiving an official catalog entry, was not tracked down by an observatory for hours no the moment of closest approach on Sunday.
While this may sound disturbing, it is actually not much to worry about, as this asteroid was probably not a threat, even if it hit the Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA estimates that QG 2020 has a diameter of about 10-20 feet. That makes it roughly the size of a Tesla Model 3, leaving you wondering for a second whether the car that Elon Musk famously launched to Mars might have activated its autonomous boosters and tried to make its way home.
If a Tesla, or just about anything else that big collision with Earth, it would probably burn up if it met the serious resistance provided by our atmosphere.
A few years ago, a similarly sized asteroid, 2018 LA, was detected before it actually affected Earth. It is believed that only the smallest bits made it to the ground in Africa, causing no reported damage or injuries.
For some contexts, the bolide that surprised the world when it exploded in the air over Russia in 2013 blew thousands of windows down, probably at least ten times larger than 2020QG.
That asteroid also prevents early detection, but the good news is that astronomers and automated aerial surveys are getting better at scanning the skies for incoming threats.
However, we still have blind spots, however, especially in the southern hemisphere, which is where it appears that this asteroid made its near fly-by.
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