00:00So, how do you feel about cooking? Nah, pasta and burgers are overrated. How about something
00:06more exotic, or rather, more cosmic? So, the recipe is simple. Take a team of enthusiastic
00:12astronomers and add some old images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Stir really well,
00:19and you'll get a shocking number of tiny asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars
00:23and Jupiter. Yummy! The highlight of this dish is the direction
00:27in which some of the asteroids are moving, because in their way, there's our poor planet.
00:33Are we doomed just because you decided to cook? Now, the asteroids I'm talking about
00:38are much smaller than the massive space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs, but they can
00:43still cause considerable damage. They range in size from as small as a bus to as big as
00:49a stadium. But even those small ones pack quite a punch. Let's look at a recent dramatic
00:54example. It happened on February 15, 2013. A small asteroid just tens of feet wide exploded
01:02in an airburst over Chelyabinsk in Siberia, releasing an insane amount of energy. Many
01:08people witnessed and recorded the event, and it gave scientists vital clues. New computer
01:13models helped scientists reconstruct the size, speed, and impact of the Chelyabinsk meteor.
01:19It was likely an asteroid, about the size of a 5-story building, exploding from 15 to
01:2518 miles above Earth's surface with an enormous, incomparable force. The blast shattered a
01:31million windows and hurt over 1,000 people. Fortunately, it wasn't powerful enough to
01:36cause too much damage. But it gave us an idea about how dangerous an airburst can be.
01:43An airburst occurs when an object explodes high in the atmosphere, never striking the
01:48ground but releasing enough energy to devastate the area.
01:52But back to the small asteroids. The most dangerous thing about them is that they hit
01:57the Earth far more often than the larger ones, about 10,000 times more frequently. To make
02:03matters worse, their small size makes them harder to detect in advance, leaving little
02:08time for preparation if one is heading towards Earth.
02:12Now let's travel back in time. Uh-oh, dinosaurs! Too far back. Ah, there we go!
02:18A team of astronomers is working on a special method to find small asteroids in telescope
02:23images that were originally taken to study distant stars. Using this method, they've
02:29looked through thousands of JWST images of a star system called TRAPPIST-1. It's located
02:3540 light-years away and is one of the most studied systems outside our Solar System.
02:40Now while analyzing these images, they discovered 138 new asteroids in the main asteroid belt,
02:47plus 8 they already knew about. And guess what? Among the newly found asteroids, 6 seem
02:53to have been pushed into paths that could bring them closer to Earth. Who did it? Well,
02:59probably nearby planets. Are they holding a grudge against Earth?
03:03Interestingly, scientists thought they'd find just a few new asteroids, but the number
03:08was much higher than they expected. Yet, it's no wonder. Right now, they're exploring
03:13a part of space they didn't know much about before.
03:17Now let's talk about the hero of the day, the James Webb Space Telescope. It's especially
03:22good at finding small asteroids because it can detect their heat. These asteroids give
03:27off infrared radiation, which is much easier to see than the faint sunlight that reflects
03:32off their surfaces. This technology allowed scientists to spot the smallest asteroids
03:37ever seen in the main asteroid belt. The asteroids they found are pieces left over from collisions
03:43between bigger space rocks. Finding them helps astronomers understand the history of the
03:48asteroid belt and improve methods for tracking small asteroids that could threaten Earth.
03:54The researchers are planning to use James Webb to observe other star systems for at
03:59least 500 hours. They expect this work to uncover thousands more small asteroids in
04:04the Solar System. Other advanced telescopes, like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile,
04:10will also help. Starting in 2025, this observatory will use the world's largest digital camera
04:16to photograph the southern sky every night for at least 10 years. Each image will cover
04:22a huge area of the sky, about 40 times the size of the full Moon. The observatory might
04:28find up to 2.5 million asteroids in just 6 months, almost doubling the number we know
04:33about.
04:36Recently NASA has identified two small asteroids. They were supposed to pass near Earth on December
04:4216, 2024. Luckily, neither posed any danger to our planet. The first asteroid was 71 feet
04:49wide, about the size of a large airplane, and was traveling at 10,800 mph. The second
04:56asteroid was slightly smaller, 56 feet wide, but it traveled faster, at 14,700 mph. But
05:03hey, even though this time the danger has passed, who knows what the future will bring.
05:10It may sound weird these days, but astronomers didn't really care much about small asteroids
05:15for a rather long time. They thought of them as just random space debris that got in the
05:20way of observing stars. Some even called them sky parasites. But now, the way we see
05:26these little space rocks has completely changed. You see, until recently, we could only spot
05:32really big asteroids, those over a mile wide. The smaller ones just blended into the background
05:38noise and telescope images. But then, a clever trick appeared where multiple images of the
05:44same part of the sky were combined, making those faint small objects finally stand out.
05:50The data from certain telescopes, along with the James Webb Space Telescope, helps us improve
05:56planetary defense. But there's more to it than just protecting our planet. Studying
06:01these small asteroids also teaches us about how the Solar System evolved. There are so
06:07many of them because they're fragments from collisions between bigger space rocks. One
06:12researcher has said, this is like looking at old data in a new way. These small asteroids,
06:18which people used to think of as space junk, are crucial for understanding our Solar System
06:23and even preparing for whatever the future holds.
06:27Among those hundreds of millions of rocks orbiting the Sun in the asteroid belt between
06:31Mars and Jupiter, some are especially worrisome. They come close enough to Earth for it to
06:36be quite concerning. NASA classifies asteroids that orbit within 30 million miles of our
06:42planet as near-Earth objects, and those could pose a serious threat if they were to collide
06:48with our planet. Right now, NASA is closely monitoring an asteroid named Bennu. This is
06:54a fairly large space rock, measuring about 1600 feet across. It could, potentially, crash
07:01into Earth in 159 years. First, the astronauts spotted it in 1999. So currently, experts
07:08believe that there's a small chance Bennu could drift into Earth's orbit and collide
07:13with our planet by September 24, 2182. Would it be bad?
07:18Well, to put it in perspective, Bennu is taller than the Empire State Building. If it hit
07:24Earth, it would generate 1,200 megatons of energy, an amount so massive that nothing
07:30on Earth could generate that. NASA scientists are particularly concerned about a tiny chance
07:37that Bennu could pass through a gravitational keyhole during a flyby in the 22nd century.
07:43This keyhole is a region in space that could set the asteroid on a path that brings it
07:48directly to Earth. Now, Bennu flies by Earth every 6 years and has had 3 close encounters
07:54with us, in 1999, 2005, and 2011. Right now, scientists estimate that the chance of Bennu
08:02hitting Earth by 2182 is about 1 in 2700, more than 5 times greater than the chance
08:09of being struck by lightning. Although the chances of Bennu colliding with Earth are
08:13very low right now, this space rock is still classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid
08:20because it might come as close as 4.65 million miles to Earth.
08:25This asteroid is another space rock that we need to keep an eye on. It's a near-Earth
08:30object about 1,100 feet across, and it was discovered in 2004. Initially, it was considered
08:37one of the most dangerous asteroids ever detected. Apophis quickly gained attention because experts
08:43believed it could pose a serious threat to Earth because of its close approach to our
08:47planet in 2029. However, after further study of its orbit, astronomers determined that
08:53there was no risk of a collision for at least a century. Well, we can all breathe easier
08:59now, can't we? That's it for today! So, hey, if you pacified
09:03your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends! Or, if you
09:08want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side of life!
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