It has been a crazy 2023, and its only February. We have had Chinese spy balloons, UFO’s shot down on consecutive days by the United States military, accusations of the NFL being rigged, and an asteroid the size of a truck slipped by our “Planetary Threat Detection System” last week, buzzing the atmosphere at a ‘too close for comfort” range. What’s next? Oh yea, there are five potentially hazardous asteroids set to buzz the planet on Valentines Day. Great! Check this out.
Five different “Near Earth Objects” (NEOs) are heading our way Valentine’s Day, according to NASA.
NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) is tracking five different asteroids heading toward Earth on Valentine’s Day 2023. A majority of the rocks will pass us by more than a million miles, but two are expected to fly as close as 260,000 and 700,000 miles — which might sound like a lot, but it’s really not when you put it into the context of our cosmos.
NASA’s CNEOS classifies NEOs as asteroids and comets orbiting within 120 million miles of our sun. It’s believed that anything flying within this range of our closest star also has the potential to circulate through our “orbital neighborhood” here on Earth. “Potentially hazardous asteroids” are determined by their size (around 140 meters), with orbits that bring the rocks within 4.6 million miles or closer.
NASA Notes Five ‘Potentially Hazardous Asteroids’ Heading Our Way For Valentines Day https://t.co/zEgQniLzV7
— US Burning (@UsBurning) February 14, 2023
Ok, maybe none of these space rocks are coming close enough to give you an excuse to NOT shop for Valentine’s Day. Sorry. On the other hand, if your relationship is at the point where you are looking for any excuse to not shop, maybe consider being single? Not going to say I haven’t been in a relationship or two where an asteroid strike wouldn’t have been a pleasant distraction but think about all of the happy people in their relationships! Nah, screw them. What are the chances we get lucky this Valentines Day? With an asteroid strike I mean.
All of the asteroids heading in our direction Feb. 14 are within the potentially hazardous range, with the furthest asteroid having a minimum possible approach of 4.1 million miles.
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One of the asteroids whizzing past us Feb. 14, listed as 2023 CH2 on NASA’s site, almost appears to be on a collision course with our moon. But it looks like it’ll narrowly avoid blowing it out of the sky when assessing the close-approach viewer mock-up of the trajectory, at least for now.
Earth Has A Blind Spot In Our Planetary Threat Detection System https://t.co/7N55ChglDg
— Dr. Jake Baker (@DrJakeBaker) January 30, 2023
We should be safe for now, unless NASA put a decimal in the wrong place. There is a slight possibility our moon could get hit which would probably be very bad. I don’t know. The moon controls our tides to an extent, but NASA doesn’t seem overly concerned about it. Not much they could do anyway. It appears we are safe, for now. That is unless you forget Valentine’s Day, in which case you better hope for a direct hit.