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Loop your seatbelts, earthlings – the end of the 2020s will offer an incredible frenzy of close asteroid overflights, and none will pose threat to life on Earth.
The six relatively large overflights of asteroids will take place over a two-year period starting in June 2027. In a presentation given to the Conference on Planetary Defense of the International Academy of Aeronautics Today (April 30th) in College Park, Maryland, Lance Benner, a radar specialist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, presented scientists with the scientific possibilities offered by the series of overflights.
"The six asteroids that will arrive will begin in the summer of 2027," said Benner. "And after that, it's going to be bang, bang, bang – not literally bang, bang, bang, but a number of them will arrive in a very short time, and that should make two very interesting years, objects make close-up approaches. "
None of these asteroids are on paths that intersect with Earth's orbit.
Related: How 2017 Flyby Asteroid Helps NASA Defend the Earth
But they'll get close enough for scientists to look at them closely, Benner said. (In fact, three of them will be visible with the help of binoculars and one of them, called Apophis, will be visible to the naked eye.)
The largest asteroid in the batch will swing first. Called 1990 MU, its width is 2.8 km. Two asteroids in the series will approach the Earth rather than the lunar orbit. During the close-up approaches Scientists will be able to collect detailed radar images of the asteroids, which will give them a good idea of the shape and speed of rotation of these objects.
In a few cases, scientists will examine these objects for the third time, providing them with enough data to analyze the minimal changes in speed that occur when solar radiation unevenly heats an asteroid.
And because scientists are aware of the presence of manna in advance, spacecraft could be fun. Current missions, like those of NASA OSIRIS-REx and Japan Hayabusa2, have shown that machines are now able to closely approach the rocks of space. In the future, such missions could possibly detect small changes to the surface of an asteroid caused by traction of the Earth on the rock during its overflight.
Close-up approaches will follow at a steady pace of two per year starting in 2027 and ending with Apophis. The multitude of flybys could even offer an opportunity for a spacecraft trajectory capable of carrying instruments beyond several of these asteroids in the same mission, Benner said.
"I think this will generate considerable scientific interest – from the public, potentially from people planning space missions," he said.
Email Meghan Bartels to [email protected] or follow her @meghanbartels. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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