Artist's impression of an Asteroid - Image credit - P. Carril, European Space Agency I’m looking to the Heavens today – not because I’m expecting to see Superman, but because June 30 th was International Asteroid Day. Did you know that according to NASA, there are no less than 16,000* objects in near earth orbit (NEOs) which could potentially fall on our collective heads? I discovered this while checking to see what International Asteroid Day was about since I hadn’t heard of it before. *The European Space Agency, has identified 23,000 such objects in their latest clip below. Fortunately, most of them will disintegrate on entering our atmosphere and we’ll see them as beautiful shooting stars to make a wish on. Occasionally however, things don’t turn out that well. The ones that get through and land on earth are called meteorites and there are literally thousands daily. Although most of these are small, there have been some quite significant ones. T...
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people