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6/23/2019

Topic Reading-Vol.2629-6/23/2019


Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Can we spot a killer asteroid before it hits Earth?
Can you imagine how vulnerable our planet is to asteroids? Have we been hit only once a century or millennium? How deadly could that be if the Earth is hit by one in the near future?
When an over-100-meter-wide meteor crashed into Earth in 1908, as many as 80 million trees were knocked down over an area of 800 square miles in the Siberian forest.
In 2013, when a 20-meter-wide asteroid exploded in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, the airburst caused shockwaves that smashed windows and injured 400 people.
Last year, a small asteroid called 2018 LA exploded over Botswana, Africa and a meteoroid of a size of 2-meter-across landed in thick grass, which was retreated after an intensive search.
Aren’t these asteroid impacts frequent and significant enough for human beings, and all the other earthlings, to worry about? If it had been Central Europe, not Siberia, what scale of destruction would have recorded in human history? People would not have had enough energy or resources to engage in WWI. What if the last year’s tiny meteoroid had hit Beijing or Washington DC instead of the grassland in Africa? The damage and casualty would have been beyond imagination.
In order to save earthlings from killer space rocks, a system of telescopes called Atlas is tracking objects flying around our planet. Once a potentially hazardous asteroid is discovered, astronomers begin plotting trajectories and predicting impact sites. When the asteroid comes close enough for radars, they can estimate the density of the object to predict landing area and the impact when it enters the atmosphere. Then an early warning could be issued to the people in the predicted area.
Is there any way to avoid such devastating impact?
Enjoy reading the article and learn about this not a present but clear danger to all earthlings.

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