symbolic image
No matter how much progress human science has made, many asteroids are crashing into Earth, evading the warning system. The special thing is that these types of incidents have increased in the last year. The last case occurred on October 22, when an asteroid was captured by the warning system and collided with Earth just three hours later. However, this asteroid crashed into Earth over the Pacific Ocean near California and caused no harm to anyone.
This asteroid was named 2024 UQ. It was discovered just two hours before it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. Its diameter was only 3 feet (1 meter). So it wasn’t much of a threat. It was discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Late Warning System (ATLAS) on October 22. ATLAS is a four-telescope survey based in Hawaii to observe near-Earth objects. Within hours of its detection, 2024 UQ burned up in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean near California.
Statement from the European Space Agency
On behalf of the European Space Agency it was reported: “The ATLAS study received such images that showed an object whose probability of colliding with the Earth was very high. The position of this object was on the edge of two nearby fields. Because of this, It was detected very late. It entered the atmosphere and began to burn. By the time astrometric impact monitoring systems predicted it would hit the Earth, it had already hit the Earth.
Third incident of this type in a year
According to ESA, this was the third time this year that the astronomical agency was unable to detect anything impacting Earth in time. So far this has happened only 10 times, but this is the third such incident in the span of a year.
Additional investment needed in the track system.
This narrow decision serves to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of modern monitoring systems and provides an argument for further investment in early detection technology. Despite being extremely harmless, this situation is the focus of Earth’s continuing improvement efforts with respect to space surveillance. The possibility of potentially dangerous space rocks hitting Earth undetected is terrifying and more investment is needed to reduce it.
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