Residents all over Australia have witnessed an astonishing display of light that lit the night sky on Sunday. A glowing green light was seen zooming across the dark sky along Western Australia, and many believe that an asteroid has caused the spectacle.
Many shared social media posts on the light streak's passing, sharing how astonished they were of what they witnessed. Some speculated that it might have been the Asteroid 2002 NN4, which was reportedly passed by Earth on Sunday.
Daily Mail shares how people reacted, saying they were truly amazed by the phenomenon. Some shared that they saw it around midnight, and described it as "cool" and "special" as no one is expecting to see such things often.
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More About Asteroid 2002 NN4
Space Reference describes the asteroid as a small body whose orbit could bring it close to Earth. It is estimated to measure around 570 meters wide and is approximately 5.2 million kilometers away from Earth. Nevertheless, it still created a spectacular light show for many to see.
In 2002, NASA JPL classified an NN4 as a "Potentially Hazardous Asteroid" because it was predicted to pass close to Earth. Furthermore, the asteroid rotates around the Sun every 300 days. It comes as close as 0.50 AU and reaches as far as 1.26 AU from the Sun.
Experts describe it to be small, but it appears larger than 90 percent of asteroids and is comparable to the size of a football field. Scientists have analyzed the rotation of 2002 NN4 and learned that it completes a rotation on its axis every 14.50 days.
The asteroid's orbit is established by observations dating back to July 2, 2002. The last time it was officially observed was on Aug. 28, 2016. The IAU Minor Planet Center documents 360 observations used to detect its orbit.
Asteroids That Pass Through Earth
So far, NASA has recognized about 958,703 asteroids and said impacts with Earth could be anticipated every 200-300 years. In a statement, they mentioned that asteroids differ in size from Vesta, the biggest, measuring at about 530 kilometers in diameter, to bodies that are less than ten meters across.
Furthermore, they say that the total mass of all the asteroids put together is less how much the Earth's Moon weighs. Some pass close to the Earth, and are therefore called near-Earth objects (NEOS).
These NEOs are basically asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun, but are revolving closer to the Earth's neighborhood. They could be detected within 30 million miles of Earth's orbit.
These objects are unchanged remnant debris from the formation of the solar system since about 4.6 billion years ago. Most of the rocky asteroids primitively formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.
On the other hand, comets are mainly composed of ice water with ingrained dust particles which were made in the cold outer solar system.
NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program locates, tracks, and checks near-Earth asteroids and comets. Astronomers supported by the program use telescopes to make inquiries on the discoveries and to do additional measurements, just like the many observatories do all over the world.
