How Powerful New Telescopes Are Helping Us Spot More Asteroids, Maybe Just In Time

NASA is watching closer than ever as another space rock gives Earth a close shave. Soon, we'll get even closer as a new spacecraft visits an asteroid. A giant space rock is hurtling toward Earth eight times faster than a speeding bullet, and it's scheduled to buzz our geosynchronous satellites tomorrow around dinnertime. It's the second big asteroid flyby in as many months, and the second that actually poses no harm to Earth any time in the foreseeable future. Take heart--while it's true that NASA and international observatories don't know about everything up there, they actually do know a lot. New space telescopes and ground-based observatories are helping spot asteroids in ways that have only become possible in the past few years. And in many respects, asteroid 2012DA14 will help make the hunt even easier. If 2012DA14 impacted Earth, it would excavate a crater comparable to the 4,000-foot diameter Meteor Crater near...

Read the whole article on PopSci

More from PopSci