2000 ME 26 is the size of two football fields and would cause a major catastrophe were it to strike Earth. Fortunately, it’s going to pass us at what is thought to be a safe distance of two million miles. It will be possible to watch the flyby in a number of places, including Slooh.com. Is there any chance that they’re wrong and that it will strike us? The answer is: very little to none. An asteroid that size would have to be traveling much more slowly and pass far closer to Earth for it to be captured by our gravity. If that happened, it would be drawn into a ‘following orbit’ that would eventually end in a collision.

At present, there appears to be more debris in the sky, and the danger does not lie so much in known and trackable objects like 2000 ME 26, but in those that either haven’t been found yet or cannot be found because they are too dark to reflect enough sunlight.

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1 Comment

  1. Did this one sneak up on us?
    Did this one sneak up on us?

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