How NASA Detects Asteroids Coming Soon to Threaten Earth

Liputan6.com, Jakarta – United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has issued a warning about a large asteroid approaching Earth on October 7, 2024. The space rock, officially named 2024 TW2, is moving at a high speed, which is 60,968 kilometers per hour.

Launching the Space page on Monday (14/10/2024), NASA confirmed the move asteroid it will not harm the earth. In the end the object 21 feet or about 6.4 meters high will pass only 288 thousand kilometers from the surface of the earth, a little shorter than the distance from the earth to the moon.

Even though it only passed by, the asteroid 2024 TW2 is still classified as a Near Earth Object (NEO) studied by NASA. With such a high speed, the size of the rock is considered safe and does not fall under the criteria for a ‘potentially hazardous asteroid’ (PHA) or hazardous asteroid.

Then, how NASA’s way of finding asteroids who is threatening the earth soon?

Launching NASA on Monday (14/10/2024), NASA and several space agencies have built a network of telescopes and advanced computing to identify NEOs. The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) was built to monitor all NEOs.

CNEOS aims to study and investigate near-Earth objects (NEO) such as asteroids and comets. This group is responsible for finding, observing and detecting potentially dangerous objects approaching the ground.

This includes objects that are large enough to cause a major impact if they were to fall to Earth. CNEOS also collects and analyzes data regarding the orbit, size, composition and other characteristics of NEOs to understand potential hazards and impacts.

Agencies such as NASA through CNEOS use telescopes and automated observation systems to discover new objects and predict their paths.

Some important monitoring systems include sentry, a system that measures the potential impact of discovered NEOs. This system provides an early warning if there is danger.

At the same time, a scout is a system that helps to identify new objects and assess whether they have the potential to threaten the earth.