An asteroid came so close to the Earth that its orbit was permanently altered

[Endymio]

... like NASA they are money black holes with little to no fruits except for hollywood sci-fi movies scenarios.

You mean except for little "fruits" like geosynchronous communications and weather satellites, each of which have paid for the costs of such space exploration.

 

[Avro Arrow]

The good news is that large objects rarely, if ever, make it past the huge gravity wells of our four outer gas giants with their moons and most that do hit the asteroid belt. We also have the moon protecting us, evidenced by the countless impact craters on its dark side:

 

[Endymio]

The good news is that large objects rarely, if ever, make it past the huge gravity wells of our four outer gas giants with their moons and most that do hit the asteroid belt. We also have the moon protecting us, evidenced by the countless impact craters on its dark side:

The moon's gravity well is less than 1/20 of the Earth's, and the asteroid "belt" is 99.9999% empty space with essentially no gravity whatsoever. Jupiter has more influence than all the rest of the planets and moons in our solar system combined.

 

[yannus]

You mean except for little "fruits" like geosynchronous communications and weather satellites, each of which have paid for the costs of such space exploration.

Agree but convenient inventions that gives them absolute control. Also they paid for the costs of the exploration, but they didn't pay back the tax payers, in fact we still have to pay to use any satellite related service.

 

[p51d007]

2000 miles is very close. The moon, which you can clearly see, is 238855 miles away from the Earth. Furthermore the article mentions some satellites are 22000 miles away from the Earth.

I still say "close" would be a few hundred miles. Something that could enter the atmosphere.

 

[mbrowne5061]

Passing by Earth at a lower altitude than GPS satellites. And yet, it wasn't detected by the big expensive early warning systems, but by a telescope in Crimea, which is in the war zone now.

Just a reminder that despite alleged early warning systems by NASA and some other agencies, which can allegedly detect asteroids at great distances (and cost billions of dollars), asteroids can so easily appear totally undetected, out of the blue. A lot of money wasted on the alarm system that doesn't really work.

Sounds like you think you can build a better one then. I encourage you to do so.

 

[Hodor]

Sounds like you think you can build a better one then. I encourage you to do so.

Give me their billions and I will. And if I fail, then I'll declare loud and clear that it doesn't work, so that people wouldn't rely on it.