Source – Astronomers first spotted an asteroid about as long as a 737 passenger jet on Sunday and analyzed its path to determine it had made a close pass by our planet three days earlier.
In other words, the big space rock slipped right by us without being detected and was only seen in our cosmic rear-view mirror.
While the asteroid, now named 2017 001, flew right on by without incident, it was a relatively close pass. It came within about one-third the distance between Earth and the moon, roughly 76,448 miles (123,031 km).
With an estimated size of between 82 and 256 feet (25 and 78 meters), it was around three times as big as the bolide that entered our atmosphere in 2013 and exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, blowing out windows and causing numerous injuries on the ground. That house-size bit of cosmic debris also had been previously undetected.
Nice. Mankind was a hair away from being obliterated while we slept and Astronomers “Missed it”? Are you fucking serious. Thats your entire job especially the pricks at NASA that hope we die.
Isn’t there some kind of warning system in place or a million satellites in space that track that stuff??
Begs a different question. If you knew an asteroid was about to fist planet earth would you want to know and spend your final moments scared to death and shitting yourself with the people you love?
Or would you rather be blissfully ignorant about your impeding vaporization and carry on living your life without knowing an asteroid is going to end human human existence?
I’d rather know so I could cross shit off my list of things I want to do. Orgy. Heroin. Streak at a Leaf Game. Put Mentos in a 2 litre Coke bottle. Normal stuff.
We’re here now so soak it up.
