Spanish astronomer says that the “Great Pumpkin” shows our vulnerability – Terra Peru

The fact that until two weeks ago did not knew the existence of the asteroid 2015 TB145, known as the “Great Pumpkin” and now will pass near Earth, shows that “we are very vulnerable,” said one of the astronomers Spaniards involved in monitoring.

For the astronomer Miquel Serra, a member of the research group of the Solar System Astrophysics Institute of the Canary Islands (IAC), it is “incredible” that a celestial object like this, with a diameter of almost one kilometer, is discovered just two weeks ago.

The discovery was made on 10 October this year by a NASA project in Hawaii (USA), and is a potentially dangerous celestial object will pass about 486,000 kilometers Earth, ie 1.3 times the distance to the moon, and a speed of about 126,000 kilometers per hour.

Miguel Serra noted that while all near-Earth asteroids are known and have more than one kilometer in diameter and approximately 40 percent of which is half a kilometer in diameter, “escape us “Most of celestial objects that have a smaller diameter.

And it is worrying that the number of celestial objects that are tens of meters and capable of destroying a city, Miquel Serra said is not known.

The IAC astronomer Javier Licandro recalled, meanwhile, that celestial objects with more than thirty meters in diameter could cause a catastrophe and one of more than a kilometer almost destroy life on Earth.

According to Miquel Serra early warning projects are needed to find out in advance this type of objects, and therefore shortly begin operating at the Observatorio del Teide on the Canary island of Tenerife, a telescope robot to locate asteroids that could destroy a city.

Javier Licandro, the research group of the Solar System IAC is very important track TB145 2015 because it is quite large and centuries could collide with Earth.

In addition, moves in cometary orbit, so from telescopes in the IAC will be monitored to determine whether an asteroid or comet inactive.

To determine whether it is an asteroid or a comet and inactive to find your path in the future if necessary divert, telescopes as IAC80 and Open Disclosure will be used at the Observatorio del Teide, to observe the visible range and calculate the rotation period from the varying brightness of celestial object.

And since William Herschel telescope and Galileo National in the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, also in the Canary Islands, will attempt to obtain spectra in the visible and infrared for information on the surface composition of 2015 TB145, while with the Isaac Newton Telescope will be a photometric monitoring in the visible range.