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Astronomy - Near Earth Objects

A tiny but actually important discovery was made on the night of March 24, 1993. That night, a photo was taken by the 0.4 meter telescope on Palomar Mountain in California. Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy studied that photo and found an unknown comet. That comet caused a huge impact.

In July 1992 that comet fractured into pieces up to 2 kilometers. The largest fragments were all large enough to create a huge impact.

Photos by the McDonald Observatory in Texas showed that the comet was not orbiting the sun. This unusual comet was actually orbiting Jupiter. Even more unusual, this comet was destined to crash into the planet.

Crowds watched in expectation over the internet during the third week of July 1994 as the pictures came in. The sight was even more impressive than anyone would have imagined.

Those huge impacts lit a firestorm of huge exploration for Near Earth Objects (NEA's). After all, if such impressive collisions could cause such a comotion on a far away planet, think what they would cause on earth!

Near earth objects are not animals of Star wars like Acklay, Dewback, Mogo, Cy'een, Graiveh, Shell Spider or Wampa. But rather, Near Earth Objects are asteroids, comets and meteoroids that have orbits close enough to theoretically impact earth.

This type of astronomical collision is not new. In fact on earth, there are many craters that prove that astronomical collisions have happened. Consider these: Amguid Crater in Algeria which is 0.45 km wide; Keurusselkä crater in Finland which is 30 km wide; Sobolev crater in Russia which is 0.053 km wide; Strangways crater in Northern Territory which is 25 km wide; Gusev crater in Russia which is 3 km wide; Oasis Crater in Libya which is 18 km wide; Campo del Cielo crater in Argentina which is 0.05 km wide; Haviland crater in Kansas which is 0.015 km wide.

Over 200 asteroids like Icarusand 1990 MU have been discovered which could hit earth. Any one of these could cause massive destruction.

Today, NASA has an ongoing and escalating program to try to discover and track every object that could potentially cause any severe damage to earth.

Walter Baade discovered Icarus in 1949. Icarus approaches earth with gaps of 9, 19 and 39 years. It could someday strike earth. Because of that, Professor Paul Sandorff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave his students an interesting project in 1967. He asked his students to create a plan to destroy Icarus if it came too close. The results of that project - Project Icarus - were made into the film Meteor. Those ideas continue to be explored and we search for other threats from the sky.

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