An infrared space telescope, called the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has discovered several dark asteroids close to Earth that could possibly be a threat to our planet. Those asteroids are very dark and reflect less than 10% of the sunlight they receive, which makes them extremely hard to spot with traditional telescopes. However they absorb a lot of the sunlight and heat up which makes them quite bright in infrared. That’s why WISE could detect them.
Near-Earth Object becomes visible in infrared
WISE, the new space telescope launched on December 14, 2009 is expected to discover as many as 1000 near-Earth asteroids. However according to current estimates the number of undiscovered dark asteroids capable of doing great damage if they hit Earth are over 10,000.
It seems that the odds of an asteroid impact destroying human civilization on Earth have increased dramatically since this discovery. If we don’t want to end like the dinosaurs, it would be a good idea to establish permanent and self-sufficient outposts on the Moon and perhaps Mars. That way at least, in event of a catastrophe the human race will live on. We should also work on an efficient way of detecting asteroids long before they are due to impact and deflect them on time. Science fiction movies such as Armageddon and Deep Impact depict such a scenario.
Image credits: Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) by NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
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2 Responses to “Dark Asteroids Discovered, Possible Threat to Earth”
Posted: Mar 12th, 2010 at 12:50 AM
Wow scary stuff I think that we should stop titting around with free market make yourselves rich and start cooperating with each other globaly with tha aim of getting off the planet as ultimately it is the only hope for mankind.
I think that it is entirely possible to survive as a race without a planet at all ie giant space stations that are sel sustainable this could be achieved in 40 0r 50 years if the world statrted to pool its resources.
Posted: Mar 12th, 2010 at 7:21 AM
Yes I suppose it would be possible to survive without a planet. But it would be much better to have both our planet and the giant self sustaining space stations.
When we will have a lot of infrastructure in space, it will be quite easy to deflect an asteroid to prevent it from hitting the Earth (or any other planet/moon we might have colonized).