Top Document: [sci.astro] Solar System (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (5/9) Previous Document: E.16 What's the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt? Next Document: E.17.1 What would be the effects of an asteroid impact on the Earth? See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Much of the material in this section is drawn from the SpaceGuard Survey report, <URL:http://ccf.arc.nasa.gov/sst/spaceguard.html>. A crucial point about asteroid impacts is that they are random. Below are various estimates of the frequency with which the Earth is struck by objects of various sizes. These estimates are, roughly speaking, averages over the Earth's history. For instance, the average time between the impact of a 100 m diameter object is roughly 100--200 yr. The actual time between the impacts of such objects could be shorter than 10 yr or longer than 1000 yr. For more information about Near-Earth Objects, those asteroids (or minor planets) that have orbits similar to Earth's, see the following. A list of "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids" (PHAs) is at <URL:http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Dangerous.html>. These have a projected closest distance to Earth of less than 0.05 AU (7.5 million km, about 1000 Earth radii). A list of closest approaches to the Earth by PHAs between 1999 and 2099 is available at <URL:http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/PHACloseApp.html>. A list of moderately close (to within 0.2 AU) approaches to the Earth by asteroids and comets between 1999 and 2032 is available at <URL:http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/CloseApp.html>. It is worth emphasizing that, at the moment, *none* of the known objects presents a serious risk of collision. User Contributions:Top Document: [sci.astro] Solar System (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (5/9) Previous Document: E.16 What's the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt? Next Document: E.17.1 What would be the effects of an asteroid impact on the Earth? Part0 - Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4 - Part5 - Part6 - Part7 - Part8 - Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: jlazio@patriot.net
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM
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