Planetary securityAnnual Taurids meteor shower may be hiding asteroids capable of wiping out entire continents
Each year, from the end of October, the skies light up in what is called “nature’s fireworks” — the annual Taurids meteor shower which lights up the night sky with hundreds of fireballs. Scientists say that next time, this spectacular shower could be hiding doomsday asteroids. The scientists are warning that the cosmic fragments of ice and rock could be large enough to wipe out whole continents. Researchers predict that one of these fragments could hit Earth in 2022, 2025, 2032, or 2039. The biggest ever documented explosion occurred in Siberia on 20 June 1908. Known as the Tunguska event, the blast –with a force of 185 Hiroshima bombs — happened after Taurids meteor shower lighted up the Siberian sky.
The annual Taurids meteor shower lights up the night sky each year with hundreds of fireballs.
Scientists say that next time, this spectacular shower could be hiding doomsday asteroids. The scientists are warning that the cosmic fragments of ice and rock could be large enough to wipe out whole continents.
The researchers predict that one of these fragments could hit Earth in 2022, 2025, 2032, or 2039.
The Express reports that each year, from the end of October, the skies light up in what is called “nature’s fireworks.”
The Taurids “show” is the result of debris left behind by Encke’s comet, named after the astronomer who, in 1819, plotted its annual trajectory.
Researchers from the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Science have been keeping a close eye on these fragments., and have found two asteroids, called 2015 TX24 and 2005 UR, which are part of a previously undiscovered segment of the Taurids’ debris.
The Earth passes through this potentially dangerous segment once every few years, marked by greater numbers of shooting stars.
The scientists calculate that the next encounters between Earth and the potentially dangerous segment of Taurids will occur in 2022, 2025, 2032, and 2039.
The asteroids measure 650 feet to 900 feet across, and are registered on the International Astronomical Union’s list of “potentially hazardous” asteroids.
The Czech scientists said they were concerned that the hidden debris field may contain even larger, and hence more dangerous, objects.
In a paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, the study’s authors said: “Since asteroids of sizes of tens to hundreds meters pose a treat to the ground even if they are intrinsically weak, impact hazard increases significantly when the Earth encounters the Taurid new branch every few years.
“Further studies leading to better description of this real source of potentially hazardous objects, which can be large enough to cause significant regional or even continental damage on the Earth, are therefore extremely important.”
The biggest ever documented explosion occurred in Siberia on 20 June 1908. Known as the Tunguska event, the blast –with a force of 185 Hiroshima bombs — happened after a large fireball was seen crossing the Siberian sky. The blast was so powerful, it was picked up by sensors in Britain and the United States.
The explosion occurred six miles above ground, flattening 80 million trees.
The Tunguska blast was likely produced by a Taurids comet or asteroid hurtling through Earth’s atmosphere at over 33,500 miles per hour.
The object which caused the Tunguska explosion probably entered the atmosphere at a speed of 9 to 19 miles per second. It was fragile, so it destroyed itself about six miles above Earth.
If an object hiding inside the Taurids shower is large and cohesive enough to make it through the atmosphere in one piece and strike the ground, the damage would be catastrophic, the Czech scientists say.
— Read more in P. Spurný et al., “Discovery of a new branch of the Taurid meteoroid stream as a real source of potentially hazardous bodies,” Astronomy & Astrophysics (25 May 2017)
