A car-sized asteroid narrowly missed our planet over the weekend, and worryingly, NASA has admitted it ‘didn’t see it coming.’
The asteroid, dubbed 2020 QG, skimmed by Earth at a mere 1,830 miles on August 16.
While that might sound far, it’s actually the closest asteroid flyby ever recorded that didn’t end with the space rock’s demise.
The space rock is estimated to measure around 2.9 m – 6.4 m in diameter, making it roughly the same size as a car.
While NASA regularly monitors the skies for approaching asteroids, it somehow missed 2020 QG.
Speaking to Business Insider, Paul Chodas, the director of NASA’s Centre for Near Earth Object Studies, said: “The asteroid approached undetected from the direction of the sun.
“We didn’t see it coming.”
Thankfully, 2020 QG safely skimmed by our planet, but that’s not to say that NASA has ruled out the possibility of an asteroid impact in the near future.
NASA explained: “Over long periods of time, however, the chances of the Earth being impacted are not negligible so that some form of NEO insurance is warranted.
“At the moment, our best insurance rests with the NEO scientists and their efforts to first find these objects and then track their motions into the future. We need to first find them, then keep an eye on them.”
If an asteroid is found to be on a collision course for Earth, NASA has several tactics up its sleeve to prevent a collision.
It explained: “One of the techniques suggested for deflecting an asteroid includes nuclear fusion weapons set off above the surface to slightly change the asteroid’s velocity without fracturing it.
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“High speed neutrons from the explosion would irradiate a shell of material on the surface of the asteroid facing the explosion. The material in this surface shell would then expand and blow off, thus producing a recoil upon the asteroid itself.
“A very modest velocity change in the asteroid’s motion (only a few millimeters per second), acting over several years, can cause the asteroid to miss the Earth entirely. However, the trick is to gently nudge the asteroid out of harm’s way and not to blow it up.
“This latter option, though popular in the movies, only creates a bigger problem when all the pieces encounter the Earth.
“Another option that has been discussed includes the establishment of large solar sails on a small threatening object so that the pressure of sunlight could eventually redirect the object away from its predicted Earth collision.”
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