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200-foot asteroid just missed Earth last week, wasn't discovered until 2 days after it missed


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2023-07-18-ts3_thumbs-e7d.jpg
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Astronomers at the Atlas Observatory in South Africa first spotted 2023 NT1 on July 15, two days after making its closest approach to Earth. The asteroid entered...

 

If it had struck land it would have caused city-level destruction and resulted in regional damage. If it had struck water near a coast, it would have caused a large tsunami.

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I wonder if an asteroid strike might ever accidentally start a nuclear exchange?  Like, say an undetected asteroid hits somewhere in Siberia, and Russia mistakes it as an American nuclear strike and attempts to retaliate before anyone actually figures out it was not a nuclear explosion.

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1 minute ago, mclumber1 said:

I wonder if an asteroid strike might ever accidentally start a nuclear exchange?  Like, say an undetected asteroid hits somewhere in Siberia, and Russia mistakes it as an American nuclear strike and attempts to retaliate before anyone actually figures out it was not a nuclear explosion.

 

There is a practically near-zero chance of that happening due to the extent of early warning capabilities.

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16 hours ago, mclumber1 said:

I wonder if an asteroid strike might ever accidentally start a nuclear exchange?  Like, say an undetected asteroid hits somewhere in Siberia, and Russia mistakes it as an American nuclear strike and attempts to retaliate before anyone actually figures out it was not a nuclear explosion.

I suppose if it decapitated Russia wiping out the entirety of the upper echelons of their command and some subordinates who have no idea what happened but have launch capabilities and no way of figuring out what happened.

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16 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

I mean, I don't know how close "almost hit" has to be for scientists to panic, but it went 60,000 miles away. That's almost the diameter of Saturn.

 

I feel like "almost hit" is just for clicks. It's more shocking that it wasn't scene.

 

That's closer than the moon. On an astronomical scale 60,000 is nothing IMO.

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10 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

 

That's closer than the moon. On an astronomical scale 60,000 is nothing IMO.

The moon is  240,000 miles. It's realllllly far away.

 

edit: sorry, point being, in terms of "oh shit it could have hit us," is "closer than the moon" really ringing alarm bells or is it just being used for clicks?

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