Well that was really, really close! Follow FizzicsEd Articles: Comments 2 Earlier this week, we had a close shave. An asteroid passed by the Earth at just 12,000 km. The distance between the Earth and the Moon is roughly 400,000 km. That was really, really close! The asteroid was between 5 and 20 km in diameter and probably would have burned up and exploded upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere. But that’s not what I find most interesting about this. What is interesting is how little notice we had of its passing. Astronomers found the rock on Monday, before its passing on Wednesday. We have many, many telescopes aimed into space to give us warning of rocks just like these. But sometimes they just don’t see them – it really is like trying to find needles in haystacks. Although it is probably more like trying to find a speck of dust on a farm. Below is an image from NASA’s Near Earth Object program shows just how close the asteroid came. Especially when you consider the size of the universe. I’m still struggling to get my head around just how close it was. June 30 was World Meteor Day. Maybe the asteroid just wanted to join in the party. Hopefully, his much bigger friends don’t try to gate crash anytime soon. Holly, Love Science? Subscribe! Join our newsletter Receive more lesson plans and fun science ideas. PROGRAMS COURSES SHOP SCIENCE PARTIES Calendar of Events HIGH SCHOOL Science@Home 4-Week Membership 12PM: March 2024 Feb 26, 2024 - Mar 29, 2024 12PM - 12PM Price: $50 - $900 Book Now! PRIMARY Science@Home 4-Week Membership 2PM: March 2024 Feb 26, 2024 - Mar 22, 2024 2PM - 2PM Price: $50 - $900 Book Now! Light and Colour Online Workshop, Jan 18 PM Jan 18, 2024 2PM - 3PM Price: $50 Book Now! Light and Colour Online Workshop, Jan 18 AM Jan 18, 2024 9AM - 11AM Price: $50 Book Now! Lego Robotics, Sydney Olympic Park Jan 2024 Jan 24, 2024 9AM - 12PM Price: $50 Book Now! Creative Coding, Sydney Olympic Park Jan 2024 Jan 24, 2024 1PM - 4PM Price: $50 Book Now! Creative Coding, Sydney Olympic Park July 11 2023 Jul 11, 2023 9AM - 4PM Price: $100 Book Now! Fizzics Education STEAM Day: Robots vs Dinosaurs, Lalor, Apr 14 Apr 14, 2023 9AM - 12PM Price: $45 - $50 Book Now! Creative Coding, Sydney Olympic Park April 14 2023 Apr 14, 2023 9AM - 4PM Price: $100 Book Now! Science@Home After School 4-Week Membership: March 2023 Mar 06, 2023 - Mar 31, 2023 4PM - 5PM Price: $40 - $1200 Book Now! Featured Articles Fun summer science experiments! Topics Books [3] Farming [1] Outdoors [36] Sport [8] careers [10] UN SDGs [4] collaboration [1] Engineering [4] US Education [1] China [1] Food [5] Outreach [35] STEM [228] Physics [6] Global [2] K to 2 education [1] Virtual reality [2] citizen science [1] Churchill Fellowship [19] Gaming [7] Ozscied [2] Teaching [266] Chemistry [5] International [1] Photography [1] Play [1] numeracy [1] Cleveland [1] Gifted [7] Podcasts [119] Television [2] design thinking [8] Chinese student visits [1] Parenting [4] preservice teaching [5] Higher order thinking [1] Club [4] History [4] Pop Culture [4] Toys & Gadgets [1] project-based learning [5] Science & Technology Camps [1] Lesson ideas [1] Comedy [2] Philosophy [1] Coding [14] Indigenous [3] Preschool [24] Video Conferencing [40] family [2] Design [2] Lab Tech [1] math [1] Pakistan [1] Cooking [3] Kids [36] Remote Education [18] Virtual Excursions [9] Inclusive education [6] Oceans [6] Leadership [1] Electricity [1] Agritech [1] Dinosaurs [7] Kids Parties [5] Robotics [12] Edutech [26] Classroom management [1] video conference [1] special needs [1] scholarship [1] Botany [1] Apps [11] Distance Education [51] Kitchen Chemistry [7] Safety [2] Distance Learning [19] Student encouragement [2] online [5] image [1] Africa [1] Agriculture [4] Eastershow [2] Maker Space [11] Scicomm [141] primary education [46] STEAM [10] virtual [2] gamification [1] Asia Pacific [1] Art [17] Edchat [223] Maths [14] Scied [34] literacy [7] Higher education [4] Child online safety [1] Esports [1] Easter [1] Augmented Reality [4] Edtech [68] Media [18] Science [6] secondary education [45] teacher [1] dis [0] biotechnology [1] curriculum [2] AussieED [1] Education [212] Museums [31] Science News [4] Christmas [1] Vacation care [1] Film [1] computational thinking [2] high [1] Awards [14] Educhange [5] Music [3] Social Media [8] experiments [6] middle school [2] Inquiry-based learning [5] digital technologies [5] Earth science [1] Big History [1] Environment [39] NASA [6] Soils [1] seasonal [1] Artificial Intelligence [4] List [1] Games [1] Medicine [1] Biology [44] Events [45] National Science Week [3] Space Science [33] competitions [13] Sustainability [12] Student investigation [2] Social Emotional Learning [1] CAST test [1] Load More Topics
Earlier this week, we had a close shave. An asteroid passed by the Earth at just 12,000 km. The distance between the Earth and the Moon is roughly 400,000 km. That was really, really close! The asteroid was between 5 and 20 km in diameter and probably would have burned up and exploded upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere. But that’s not what I find most interesting about this. What is interesting is how little notice we had of its passing. Astronomers found the rock on Monday, before its passing on Wednesday. We have many, many telescopes aimed into space to give us warning of rocks just like these. But sometimes they just don’t see them – it really is like trying to find needles in haystacks. Although it is probably more like trying to find a speck of dust on a farm. Below is an image from NASA’s Near Earth Object program shows just how close the asteroid came. Especially when you consider the size of the universe. I’m still struggling to get my head around just how close it was. June 30 was World Meteor Day. Maybe the asteroid just wanted to join in the party. Hopefully, his much bigger friends don’t try to gate crash anytime soon. Holly,
Hi Sarah, Thanks for the heads up! Not sure if the text was not coming up for you or if whether it was the tense issue in the prose? Holly’s blog on the asteroid near-miss was a bit shorter than our usual articles. You can check out more information on this topic via the NASA JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies. Also, 2019’s National Science Week theme is Destination Moon and this link has a bunch of lunar teaching ideas that you can use in your classroom. All the best, Ben Reply
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