We Knew This Asteroid Would Hit Earth

We knew this asteroid would hit Earth (and mostly burn up in the atmosphere) - and that's a really big deal. It’s only the 9th time we’ve detected an asteroid before it hit. Here's why... and how we're fixing that.

Our current telescopes have identified we think around 94% of the largest asteroids in our Solar System. So the main challenge are the medium sized ones, which could still cause real damage, and we think we’ve only located 38% them. Luckily, scientists are currently building new telescopes that could increase that number to 60% by 2025 or 76% by 2027.

If you like optimistic science and tech stories, subscribe for more of our show Huge If True!

#shorts #animation #deepest #science #technology #historyfacts

[arthurneddysmith]

Note to world: America now measures lengths in guitars, not metres.

[UnemptyVoid]

Sir! We've detected a 243 km asteroid coming to Earth!
Great job!
So what do we do now sir?

[TLguitar]

It's a heavy space rock the size of a guitar.

I bet if it reaches all the way to the ground it doesn't just strike the earth, it strikes a chord.

[figo]

For asteroids colliding with Earth, all we need to do is wrap paper around them… Paper defeats rock…
*Harvard wants to know my location*

[rossplendent]

Not exactly *hugely* optimistic about the statistic "We can detect 94% of mass extinction-sized asteroids."

[TheCanuckCanadain]

People don't realize. It's like finding a gran of sand in a sea of mud. And calling space a sea would be considered nothing size compared to it

[war_fish]

Unfortunately the US government does not give Nasa enough budget.

[OperationBaboon]

btw: most asteroid tracking is done by amateurs, since official bodies do not currently have the resources...

[zuterwer]

"Length of a guitar" Americans using anything but the metric system, huh?

[Charlie-Oooooo]

For those wondering, that would clearly be a HEAVY METAL ROCK guitar!
☄️🌍 🎸 🤘😎🤘

[midknightdragon]

Happened here in the Philippines a couple of weeks ago, on the northern most part of Luzon, Scientists say size is about 1 meter so it burned up in the air without hitting ground, actually the first 2 clips she showed were the real ones caught on phone video, but i think there's more people who caught it because it was announced a couple of days before its predicted to fall here in the Phils., It looked really cool & frightening at the same time!

[FncyPengu]

So you're saying, there's still a 6% chance we'll get hit by an extinction level astroid and we wouldn't even know it until it's too late? Cool.

[mykeymato]

The joys of being on the road at night, I see stuff hitting or skimming the atmosphere all the time.

[jillhill]

i have a feeling aliens will make a movie called "Don't Look Up" after earth gets blown up by some giant rogue asteroid

[LowChargedGamer]

The hell is a "length of a guitar"?

[musicwombat]

According to NASA website there are between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1km in diameter in the asteroid belt. I am going to take a wild guess that if their estimate of the number of asteroids has an interval larger than half the total number, they have not identified 99% of asteroids in the solar system.

[Drpepperboi]

Just so you know, even though we’ve found 94% of The dinosaur killing asteroids, that 6% is still lingering

[ethanpatel]

I don’t know why but there’s something oddly comforting about the idea that everything could just be ended by an asteroid one day…

[mtzyzy]

I think what she meant for the 100-1000m sizes,
would be 99% detected but until it too late like during entering the atmospehere layer, you got like at least 30minutes to warn surface people

[nikeepagatpat]

"We're really good at detecting those"
That's what the Dinosaurs also said 🦖🦕