A Near Miss Yesterday

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2020 QG, also known by its internal designation ZTF0DxQ, is an Earth-crossing near-Earth asteroid of the Apollo group that flew by Earth at a distance of approximately 2,900 kilometres (1,800 mi) (less than one-quarter of Earth's diameter) on 16 August 2020. It was discovered on 16 August 2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility at the Palomar Observatory.

This is 0.0075 lunar distance (LD), the distance between Earth and the Moon.

Since it was estimated to be only 4 meters across, had it struck Earth, it most likely would have exploded in the atmosphere.

Yes. Its a tough Universe out there.

There is a lot of cosmic shrapnel flying around. And I suspect that there is more than astronomers realize because they keep getting surprised when a space brick bat flies past our ears (like when that blazing rock went through the skies of Russia a few years ago) that they didnt know was coming.

But there is reason for hope. In a few decades we may restart the space race. Many countries may start mining asteroids for mineral ores. And near earth asteroids may start being transformed into empty beer cans in earth landfills soon. A hundred years from now...folks may be lamenting that "we didnt conserve our near earth asteroids when we had the chance, and now they are all gone". Instead of worrying about "what do we do if we get hit by a near earth asteroid?" like we say today.

So ... just another non-disaster that did not happen.

On the same day as the near miss [16 August], another asteroid impacted the atmosphere and exploded.

Every night, the Chinese Meteor Monitoring Organization (CMMO) runs an automated camera in Shandong Province, monitoring meteor activity above the coast of the Yellow Sea. On Aug. 16th, it caught the brightest fireball in years. A space rock exploded in the atmosphere over the city of Linyi, turning the midnight sky blue:

"The meteor illuminated the whole earth and shook the landscape with a loud sound," reports CMMO staff member Zhou Kun. "The flash of light, which peaked at 22:59 pm local time, was widely observed across the Shandong and Jiangsu provinces of China."

Kun estimates the astronomical magnitude of the flash to be -20, more than 900 times brighter than a full Moon (albeit not as bright as the sun). If so, that would make it a rare fireball indeed. According to a NASA computer model of Earth's meteoroid environment, a fireball of that magnitude could be a decade class event.

Source: http://www.spaceweather.com of 18 August 2020.

But we had a near miss timed with an actual strike.

If we can develop the technology to identify near misses/hits of very small asteroid predating the event by a couple days, so that we have warning time, then the world can have some reaction time for the larger impacts (such as the city killers size).

The bigger the asteroid, the easier to detect it - though, the Chelyabinsk one came undetected.

We shall all give thanks to Jupiter.

That WAS the prevailing wisdom among astronomers. That the big planet of jupiter absorbs alot of cosmic shrapnel that would hit earth, because of Jupiter's huge gravity. But some say that Jupiter's gravity steers as many comets and meteors towards the Earth as it keeps away from earth.So it cancels out. So ...I dont know which faction to believe.