A new scope , equipped with a 1.8 billion pixel camera , has discovered its first potentially grievous asteroid . The tilt is a lot small than any other asteroid we ’ve detected before , and that ’s great news for our still - produce asteroid defense organization .
The real prospect of asteroid 2010 ST3 actually hitting Earth are very , very small – we wo n’t be in the risk zone until 2098 , and even then we ’re only a very petite jot in its potential orbit of locations . But at just 50 meters across , it subsist in a distressful sweet spot : too small for conventional telescopes to spot , but more than large enough to do major regional damage if it impinge on Earth .
That ’s why the new PANSTARRS – inadequate for Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System – is so of import . Its incredibly brawny photographic camera earmark astronomers to spot bantam asteroids like these at much greater distances than ever before . We now have 88 years to compute out 2010 ST3 ’s exact course and , if it ’s a threat to Earth , find oneself a way to avert it .
For more on this story , check outBad Astronomy .
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