Astronomers mapped the orbits of dangerous asteroids for a thousand years to come

World scientists continue to monitor the skies. They are creating maps and catalogues of all potentially dangerous near-Earth objects, and now we have reliable maps of almost all potentially dangerous asteroids over a kilometre (0.6 mile) in diameter.

Science Alert reports this.

This is useful because kilometre-scale asteroids can not only wipe out entire cities, but also cause global environmental damage.

However, it is difficult to predict the orbits of all these objects after a hundred years. This is because in orbital dynamics, small changes can lead to large consequences on huge time scales. A small difference in the amount of heat an asteroid receives from the Sun, or a sudden jolt from Jupiter, can send an asteroid on a trajectory that will cross the Earth in a few thousand years.

Astronomers have examined the possible closest possible collision between known hazardous objects and the Earth. Specifically, they investigated how this closest distance varies over hundreds and thousands of years. They did this through a series of simulations that mapped as many possible orbital trajectories as possible, taking into account uncertainties in current orbital positions and velocities.

The astronomers identified one particular object, asteroid 7482, as particularly dangerous. This asteroid will spend a significant amount of time near Earth over the next millennium. While this does not necessarily mean that it will collide with our planet, it does mean that this rock represents the greatest likelihood of collision within the next thousand years.

A total of 28 candidates have been identified by astronomers as having a non-zero probability of “deep collision,” which means they will pass at a distance shorter than the distance to the Moon.

None of these objects could collide with Earth in the next hundred or thousand years, but if we want to survive in the long term, we definitely need to pay attention to them.

Recall that the explosion in the sky of Kiev in April this year commented at the Institute of Geophysics. They say that the bright glow seen by thousands of residents of Kyiv yesterday is certainly a space body, the trace of the combustion of which in the atmosphere is called a bolide or meteor.

Typically, such bodies of insignificant size at high speeds enter the atmosphere of the Earth, heated to a temperature of hundreds of thousands of degrees, falling apart into separate fragments and from the friction it burns up and explodes in the air before reaching the ground. This phenomenon is usually accompanied by a strong thunder-like sound, as well as a possible shock wave.