Asteroid 2014 DX110

[PakledHostage]

I thought some here might find this interesting: A 30 metre rock designated 2014 DX110 passed within 1 lunar distance of the earth today, only 5 days after being discovered.

[astropapi1]

Think of the damage that thing could have done...

[Nibb31]

Not much really. It would be comparable to last year's Chelyabinsk event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor. Mostly a high-altitude blast and some broken windows.

We get hit by these on a regular basis, but they usually go undetected because most of them happen in remote locations.

[Idobox]

We need to fund spaceguard seriously.

Even without talking of dinosaur killers, we will get another Tugunska, and it might not happen over an empty area. We need to detect these rocks early enough to react, either by evacuating or by shooting them.

[Scotius]

Yeah, about that...One would think a huge, wall-shaking blast over a fairly big city would serve as sufficient wake-up call for politicians and society. Did that happened? Heck, no. Looks like we will have to wait until something big punches through atmosphere, and obliterates one of world's metropolies - killing hundreds of thousands in the process

[SargeRho]

@Nibb31: And AFAIK over 1000 injured, some of them heavily.

I agree with Scotius, It'll probably take a city-killer asteroid hitting New York, Beijin, Tokyo, or even a less populated city like Frankfurt to make people realise just how real the danger is.

[Idobox]

The name spaceguard comes from Clarke's "Rendez-vous with Rama", and is set up after an asteroid ravages northern Italy. Something like that is bound to happen one day, we have been warned time and again, it's disheartening.

And the worst thing is we have the technology to destroy and deflect an asteroid of a few tens of meters. With enough advance notice you could turn a 100m rock headed for a major city and turn it into a pile a rubble heading for the south Pacific or the Sahara desert simply by launching a nuke at it.

[Headhunter09]

Considering the rising influence of commercial ventures in space, its not unbelievable we might end up with a private company providing asteroid protection for member countries that pay dues.