A meteorite will fall to earth in a year. What if it falls? How to survive after the fall of an asteroid - tips. How dangerous is the fall of a large meteorite to Earth

According to scientists, the first to see the fall of a space object called WF9 are residents of the UK. The asteroid was discovered back in November 2016, but reports of the threat have appeared only now.

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An object with a diameter of 500 meters to a kilometer should reach the Earth on February 25, reports the Daily Mail. The giant was from us at a distance of 51 million kilometers.

Astronomer Damir Demin claims that if an asteroid falls to Earth, coastal cities will be covered by giant tsunamis. The expert is sure that he will fall on our planet, according to the online publication M24. According to him, WF9 flew out of the Nibiru system. According to theories doomsday, Nibiru will destroy life on Earth.

However, not all astronomers share the pessimistic sentiments of their colleagues. General Director of the non-profit partnership "Center for Planetary Defense" Anatoly Zaitsev argues that if the object is significant, scientists immediately calculate its trajectory.

“And if he really threatened, then not only NASA would know about him. Therefore, so far the information is very doubtful in order to draw any conclusions,” Nation News quotes a specialist. There are a number of his colleagues who are sure that the asteroid will simply burn up in the atmosphere of our planet and will not harm anyone.

Asteroids, which in the future may approach the Earth at a distance equal to 7.5 million km, are considered potentially dangerous for the Earth. Our planet has more than once collided with these cosmic bodies. Today we will talk about how dangerous the fall of an asteroid to Earth is and whether there is a chance in the foreseeable future large-scale catastrophe? Let's start with a little historical background.

An asteroid (from the Greek "star-like", "star") is also called minor planet. It is a celestial body, the size of which exceeds 30 km. Some of them have their own satellites. Many asteroids travel through our solar system. 3.5 million years ago, a huge number of asteroids fell to Earth, which led to global changes.

Traces of an ancient asteroid

In the spring of 2016, in Australia, geologists discovered traces of the fall of an asteroid, the diameter of which was about 30-40 km. That is, in size it is commensurate with a small satellite. The fall caused an 11-magnitude earthquake, tsunami and massive destruction. It was probably one of the asteroids, as a result of which not only the beginnings of life were formed on the earth, but also the entire diversity of the biosphere was formed.

There is also an opinion that the mysterious disappearance of dinosaurs was due to the fall of a large asteroid to Earth. Although this is just one of many versions...

It is interesting! The ancient shock was formed as a result of a meeting with a meteorite. Its depth once reached 20 km. The fall of the meteorite caused a tsunami and climate change similar to nuclear winter. In addition, for up to 16 years on Earth, the temperature could drop by 26 degrees.

Chelyabinsk meteorite

The fall of an asteroid to Earth in February 2013 has become one of the most discussed incidents not only in Russia, but throughout the world. The asteroid, whose mass reached 16 tons, partially burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, but a relatively small part of it fell near Chelyabinsk, fortunately flying over it.

In that year, he flew over the Ural city, which served as the basis for his name. The body itself turned out to be quite ordinary and consisted of chondrites, but the time and place of its fall aroused interest. None of the asteroids that fell to Earth did such damage, since they did not fall in such close proximity to a densely populated area. The mass of the meteorite was 6 tons. Falling into the lake caused broken glass in 7,000 buildings. 112 people were hospitalized with burns, several more people turned to doctors for help. In total, the shock wave covered 6.5 thousand square meters.

The huge damage caused by the asteroid could have been much more significant if the heavenly stone had fallen not into the water, but onto land. Fortunately, the fall of the asteroid to earth did not turn into a large-scale catastrophe.

How dangerous is the fall of a large meteorite to Earth?

According to the calculations of scientists, the fall of an asteroid to Earth can lead to huge damage if a body about 1 km in size falls on the Earth's land. First of all, a funnel with a diameter of about 15 km is formed, this will cause dust to enter the atmosphere. And this, in turn, can lead to large-scale fires. Dust, heated by the sun, will reduce the level of ozone, accelerate chemical reactions in the stratosphere, reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the planet.

Thus, the consequences of an asteroid falling to Earth are very serious. global temperature The earth will fall at 8 0 C, causing ice Age. But in order to cause the extinction of mankind, the asteroid must be 10 times larger.

Giant danger

Recently, scientists have found that centaurs should be included in the list of potential threats to our planet - these are giant asteroids with a diameter of 50 to 100 km. The gravitational field of other planets every 40-100 thousand years throws them towards our Earth. Their number has now increased dramatically. Is it possible for a giant asteroid to fall to Earth in the near future, scientists are constantly calculating, although calculating the trajectory of the fall of centaurs is a very difficult task.

In addition, the list of potential threats to the Earth includes:

• supervolcanic eruption;
• global pandemic;
• asteroid impact (in 0.00013%);
• nuclear war;
• ecological catastrophy.

Will an asteroid hit Earth in October 2017?

The main question that this moment What worries scientists is the danger posed by an asteroid, the size of which is 2 times larger than the Chelyabinsk meteorite. There is a possibility that an event will occur in October 2017 that will cause a much larger scale of disaster than the impact in 2013. Astronomer Judith Rees claims that the diameter of the asteroid reaches 40 km. It was dubbed object WF9.

A dangerous celestial body was discovered by scientists in Hawaii back in 2012. That year, it passed at a very close distance from the Earth, and on October 12, 2017, it will approach the most dangerous distance for our planet. Scientists believe that if the fall of the asteroid to Earth really takes place, then the British will be the first to see it.

At the moment, scientists are actively studying the possibility of a collision. True, the probability of an asteroid falling to Earth is very small and, according to researchers, is 1 in a million. However, it is still there.

Constant danger

It should be noted that certain asteroids of various sizes constantly fly past the Earth. They are potentially dangerous, but very rarely actually fall to Earth. So, at the end of 2016, a body flew past the Earth at a distance of 2/3 of the distance from a small truck.

And January 2017 was marked by the passage of a celestial body reaching the size of a 10-story building. He flew within 180 thousand km from us.

“It seems that the differences in the composition of meteorites are due to the fact that their progenitors, which arose in the solar system about four billion years ago, consisted of extremely heterogeneous rock layers. I would not be surprised if all the bodies from the main asteroid belt arose as a result of the decay of an extremely small number of larger objects,” says Stanley Dermott of the University of Florida at Gainesville (USA).

Guests from heaven

In the past few decades, scientists around the world have been actively monitoring near-Earth asteroids and conducting a kind of space "census" among them, trying to understand how dangerous they are for humanity. There are so many asteroids in near-Earth space that astronomers have had to create special scales to estimate how likely they are to hit Earth.

Despite all this and the huge number of asteroids discovered beyond last years With the help of ground-based telescopes and the WISE infrared orbital observatory, many large asteroids and countless smaller objects the size of the Chelyabinsk meteorite that fell to Earth in February 2013 remain undiscovered by mankind.

As NASA reported back in 2011 at the first presentation of the NEOWISE catalog, today we know only about five thousand asteroids about a hundred meters in size, while their total number is estimated at several tens of thousands. The number of smaller objects within the main asteroid belt could be even higher, reaching up to a million.

Dermott and colleagues uncovered unusual fact, which brings together almost all of these celestial bodies and may make it easier to find and catalog them in the near future by studying the five largest "families" of asteroids.

By this word, astronomers designate groups of asteroids that rotate in a similar orbit and have a similar composition and other properties, presumably indicating their common origin. As a rule, they are called by the name of either the largest, or the first discovered "member" of the family.

The largest "collectives" of asteroids, for example, the families of Flora, Vesta, Pulana, Evlalia and Nisa, include tens of thousands of small and large objects, whose diameter can reach several tens of kilometers.

Consequences of space "billiards"

The authors of the article conducted a new "census" among these five families of asteroids, "blindly" analyzing the nature of the movement in orbit, brightness, and all the rest. physical properties all asteroids that live in the inner part of the main belt.

Similarly, as the astronomer notes, his team tried to "catch" those representatives of the five main families of asteroids, which for some reason were forced to change their orbit somewhat in the past.

In these searches, scientists relied on a simple pattern known to astronomers for many decades - if an asteroid belongs to any family, then the angle of inclination of its orbit and its elongation strictly depend on its brightness.

These calculations unexpectedly showed that about half of the asteroids that were previously considered "orphaned" actually belong to one of these five families. In total, according to the planetary scientist, approximately 85% of the inhabitants of the part of the asteroid belt closest to us are included in one of these five groups, and the nature of the remaining 15% is still unknown.

If so, then why do the new members of these families have such a colorful mineral and chemical composition? As Dermott explains, the metallic meteorites are most likely fragments of the cores of these "mega-asteroids," while the various rocky objects are fragments of the mantle, crust, and other layers of their interior.

The discovery of the general nature of most near-Earth asteroids, according to the astronomer, is extremely important in the context of protecting the Earth from possible asteroid "attacks". Now it will be easier for scientists to predict the chances of a similar outcome of events and assess their consequences, knowing that they have a similar origin and composition.

In addition, their study, as Dermott concludes, will allow us to understand the conditions under which the "embryos" of the Earth and other planets were formed, some of which were the progenitors of asteroids. This, in turn, will help scientists better and faster look for potential twins of our planet in other star systems.

The Ural meteorite for some time distracted scientists from another space object - an asteroid, which is approaching the Earth at this moment. According to calculations, it will approach the minimum distance to our planet at 23:20 Moscow time. This unique event will be broadcast live on the NASA website. The asteroid will be visible to residents of Asia and Australia, as well as, possibly, some parts of Eastern Europe.

In a little more than 2 hours, the DA14 object will pass the Earth at a distance of 28 thousand kilometers - this is closer than some satellites fly. If this asteroid weighing 130 tons and 45 meters in diameter collided with our planet, the explosion would be equal to one thousand Hiroshima. There was even an assumption that the meteorite that fell in the Urals could be part of this space monster and that other, larger ones would follow it. However, most scientists do not see a connection with the DA14 asteroid and the Ural meteorite.

"As to whether we are threatened by Armageddon or not. It is now known for certain. All asteroids larger than one kilometer in diameter, which bring such a catastrophe on a large scale to the Earth, they are all known and have well-known orbits, they are all proto-catalogued and observed There is no danger from them," Lidia Rykhlova, head of the department of space astrometry at the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, assured.

While watching a large asteroid, the meteorite that fell in the Urals was overlooked. However, it was practically impossible to see it before entering the atmosphere - neither civilian observatories nor missile defense radars can do this - the size is too small and the speed is high. The military says that even if such a meteorite is found, destroying such objects modern systems Air defense is not yet under force. Already in hindsight, scientists deduced the data of a celestial body that had already fallen in the Urals - a mass of several tons, a speed of 15 kilometers per second, an angle of incidence of 45 degrees, and a shock wave power of several kilotons. At an altitude of 50 kilometers, the object collapsed into 3 parts and almost completely burned out in the atmosphere.

“No more than 10 meters in diameter, it flew at supersonic speed and therefore generated a shock wave. This shock wave caused all these destructions, people were injured not by fragments of a meteorite, but by a shock wave. Now, if a supersonic plane would pass on the same altitude, for example, God forbid over Moscow, the destruction would have been the same,” said the deputy director of the State Astronomical Institute. Sternberg Sergei Lamzin.

Any space object that has reached the Earth's atmosphere and left a trace in it is called a meteorite by scientists. As a rule, they are small in size and, moving in the air at a speed of several kilometers per second, completely burn out. And yet, about 5 tons of cosmic matter falls to Earth every day in the form of dust and fine grains of sand. Almost all space guests come to us from the so-called asteroid belt, which is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

"A kind of garbage dump in the solar system, where all the detrital material is concentrated. Collisions between asteroids occur in this belt. As a result, some fragments are formed that can acquire an orbit that intersects the Earth's orbit," said Mikhail Nazarov.

However, some scientists believe that it was not a meteorite that fell near Chelyabinsk at all. They are sure that no one will find any wreckage, just as they did not find the wreckage Tunguska meteorite. We are most likely talking about a cooled comet, which consists of frozen gases.

"If the nucleus of a first-generation comet invades the Earth, then it almost completely burns up in the Earth's atmosphere, and it is impossible to find any remnants on the surface. This is similar to the Tunguska phenomenon, when no remnants of the body were found, but there was a large fall of the forest over a large area and the trees were all heavily charred," said Researcher Department of Space Astrometry of the Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladislav Leonov.

Nevertheless, the search for the remains of a meteorite near Chelyabinsk continues. At the same time, not only rescuers and scientists are looking for, now dozens of meteorite hunters have already rushed to the area of ​​​​the alleged fall. The price of some of them on the black market can reach up to several thousand rubles per gram.

The diameter of the celestial body is about 40 meters

Western astronomers have discovered a space object twice the size of the famous Chelyabinsk meteorite, a meeting with which may take place in 2017. Scale possible destruction may be much larger than in the latter case.

According to preliminary calculations by American female astronomer Judith Rees of the University of Texas Macdonald Observatory, the diameter of the new asteroid is about 40 meters, which, when colliding with the surface of our planet, will cause devastating damage several times greater than the consequences of the collapse of a smaller meteorite in the Chelyabinsk region in February. 2013, according to astronomical astrowatch.net.

A dangerous celestial body was discovered in October 2012 by an observatory in Hawaii. In the same month, he passed at a dangerously close distance from the Earth of 95,000 kilometers, which is equal to the distance to the moon. Asteroid 2012 TC4 is expected to pass in the most dangerous proximity to the Earth on October 12, 2017.

Now experts are trying to establish the exact orbit of the asteroid and calculate its chances of a collision, which so far, apparently, are quite low - only 0.00055%, but, nevertheless, they still exist.

According to European Space Agency expert Detlef Koshni, the chances of a meteorite colliding with the Earth are minimal - "one in a million". The same point of view is shared by Makoto Yoshikawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Recall that two years ago, on February 15, 2013, there was a fall - the largest known celestial bodies that fell to the ground after the Tunguska meteorite in 1908.

The flash of light was also visible in neighboring regions, as well as in neighboring Kazakhstan. The shock wave shattered windows in more than 7,000 buildings. The incident did not cause any casualties, but more than 1.6 thousand people were injured, 52 people were hospitalized.

Scientists estimated the mass of the object before entering the atmosphere at 13,000 tons, and its size at 19.8 meters.

A few minutes after the explosion (according to eyewitnesses, from 77 seconds to three minutes or more, depending on the distance), a shock wave hit the ground. The band of impact of the shock wave on the surface was about 130 kilometers long and 50 kilometers wide.

The area affected by the shock wave was 6.5 thousand square kilometers.

Only 4-6 tons of meteorite matter flew to the ground, which is 0.03-0.05% of the initial mass, while 76% evaporated, and the rest turned into dust.

The study of the meteorite substance showed that the Chelyabinsk asteroid was an ordinary LL5 type chondrite, its age is about 4.45 billion years, around the time of its birth it experienced a powerful collision with another object. Chemical analysis showed that there were traces in the meteorite organic compounds containing sulfur and oxygen.

Witnesses of the event interviewed by scientists said that it was painful for them to look at the fireball. About 25 people out of 1.1 thousand respondents reported that they received burns, 315 felt hot, and 415 felt heat from the radiation of the fireball.

The meteorite, named "Chelyabinsk", turned out to be the largest known celestial body that fell to Earth after the Tunguska meteorite in 1908. Such an event occurs on average once every 100 years.

The "Chelyabinsk event" also became significant for politics: it forced the authorities of the United States, Russia and the European Union to once again return to the problem of the asteroid-comet hazard.