Year 2098, collision course
between that asteroid and the Earth

THROUGH the recently started Pan-STARRS PS1 telescope, the University of Hawaii has discovered an asteroid that will be around 6.4 million kilometers from Earth in mid-October. Its size is around 45-50 m in diameter and was observed for the first time when it was around 32 million km from our planet. It was called 2010 ST3. So far there is nothing exceptional except that from the first data obtained it is an asteroid on a collision course with the Earth. No fear for the moment, mind you.

In fact, astronomers have calculated that according to its current orbit it should impact with the Earth in 2098. Robert Jedicke, of the University of Hawaii explained: “Given the size of the asteroid its impact with the earth’s atmosphere will lead it to disintegrating inside it and hardly any pieces of it will arrive on the surface, but we are certain that there are numerous other asteroids much larger than 2010 ST3 that have not yet been discovered and could be on a collision course with the Earth Pan-STARRS PS1 has recently entered into activity, but has already proved to be very efficient in seeking and discovering such objects “.

An object of similar size hit the Earth in 1908 in Tunguska, Russian Siberia. The explosion of that object (in that case perhaps it was a comet 30 m in diameter) caused the demolition of 60 million trees on over 2,000 square km of surface below the explosion. The shock wave was felt up to 1,000 km away. The explosion was so violent that some convoys of the Trans-Siberian railway 600 km away were derailed.

Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center (MPC), which takes care of the small objects of the solar system that could impact with the Earth has made it known how important this type of research is in order to find all the potentially dangerous objects. According to the researchers of Pan-STARRS PS1, with this instrument at least ten tens of thousands of new objects should come to light every year, of which the orbit and therefore the degree of danger can be precisely defined. This telescope will be joined by another by the end of the decade, the PS4, which should discover at least one million asteroids unknown to date.

In recent years, several asteroids have been discovered with a probable collision course with the Earth, but subsequent calculations have shown that in reality they will touch us but will not impact us, except for one. This is the asteroid 1999 RQ36 which currently has a probability of 1,000 to clash with the Earth and 50% of the probability say that the clash should take place in 2182. This is supported by Mar Eugenia Sansaturio of the Universidad de Valladolid in Madrid.

All discoveries bring attention to the danger of asteroids that could impact our planet and this explains why NASA has chosen an asteroid to send men to a next human mission beyond the Earth’s orbit.

(September 29, 2010)