Asteroid Will Cross Mars’s Orbital Path
“Right now asteroid 2007 WD5 is about half-way between the Earth and Mars and closing the distance at a speed of about 27,900 miles per hour,” said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near Earth Object Office at JPL. “Over the next five weeks, we hope to gather more information from observatories so we can further refine the asteroid’s trajectory.”
NASA funded astronomers have found that the asteroid 2007 WD5 they have been monitoring is expected to possibly cross the Mars’ orbital path within 30,000 miles about 6 a.m. EST on January 30, 2008. Consisting of a 164-feet width, these observations and analyzations are being provided through NASA’s Near-Earth Object Office at the jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. This is an organization which has the ability to detect and track asteroids and comets that come close to Earth, with the NEOOP or “Spaceguard”, plotting the orbits of the asteroids in order to determine if they could be potentially hazardous to our planet.
The NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey first discovered the 2007 WD5 asteroid on November 20, 2007, putting the asteroid on their “watch list” as it was passing so close to Earth. Data from the Spacewatch at Kitt Peak, Arizona, and the Magdalena Ridge Observatory in New Mexico, has determined that the 2007 WD5 is not actually a danger to Earth, but the dangerous was due to it impacting the planet Mars. A class of small objects consisting of both Near Earth Objects and the “Mars crossers” consisted of the objects in addition to this unique asteroid member, as it has a 1-in-75 chance of impacting Mars. Estimations occur with such impacts that they occur about once every 1,000 years on Mars, hitting the planet about 30,000 miles per hour which could possibly create a crater on the planet’s surface more than a half-mile wide. One such crater is being explored presently by the Mars Rover Opportunity.
This asteroid collision with Mars has the possibility of releasing about three megatons of energy, similar to the 1908 Earth collision in Tunguska, Siberia. The only difference was that no crater was created with that particular impact. The Ear
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