Can NASA deflect the orbital paths of deadly asteroids hurtling towards the Earth?

There are more than 1000 deadly asteroids found hurtling towards Earth, and NASA is struggling to deflect their orbital paths. So far, the paths of only four might be diverted.

A huge meteor about the size of a mountain could totally demolishing our planet, say astronomers. And it could happen anytime in the coming decades. 

A report released by Nature World News explains that about 1,000 asteroids are hurtling towards the Earth at 60,000 miles per hour and that some of them could hit our planet. A number of the near-Earth asteroids have been identified. There are more of them waiting to be discovered in the next two years!

With powerful telescopes, experts are trying to gauge how close 2000 ET70 is going to get to the Earth. This two-mile wide space rock stirred astronomers from a number of American universities, who called it a "potentially hazardous asteroid". However, not much is known about this fist-shaped asteroid, says NASA. The huge asteroid can decimate the Earth, leading to massive earthquakes, tidal waves and widespread "apocalyptic scenes."

The asteroid is said to have already brushed past the Earth in 2012, when it came within 18 lunar distances. That was pretty close! And it might revisit our planet soon, coming so close that it could hit us.

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Don't miss Thursday's bright Orionid meteor showers!

Bright Orionid meteors are set to light up the sky Thursday night, as Earth passes through debris left behind by Halley's Comet. But whether the moon will spoil the view is the question. 

On the night of Thursday, October 20, to Friday, October 21, the sky is expected to light up with streaks of light due to the Orionid meteor shower.

Although the Orionids - the second of two meteor showers during the year that originate from Halley's Comet- go on for over a month, from early October to early November, the shower typically reaches its peak somewhere around October 20-24.

This year, the peak is expected on the night of October 20-21, as Earth passes through the greatest concentration of comet debris in Halley's trail.

Wait for the constellation of Orion - The Hunter - to rise that night to find the meteor shower's radiant, which is the point in the sky from which all the meteors appear to radiate out.

The Orionids, under ideal conditions, produces about 20 meteor streaks per hour. In other words, there should be zero light pollution, including no moon in the sky. Compared to meteor showers like the Perseids and the Geminids, which can produce over 100 meteors per hour, the Orionids are weaker.

Earlier, this happened during the 2007 shower, when the meteor rate jumped up to 70 per hour!

This year is not expected to be an outburst, and the waning gibbous moon will be in the sky that night, tracking along right next to the radiant from the time they both rise (about 10:30 p.m. local time) until dawn. So, unfortunately, the moon's light will end up washing out many of the meteors, making this particular shower difficult to see.

The shower originates from the point near the constellation Orion, which rises in the east around 10:30 p.m. and then traces a path towards the south, climbing higher in the sky with each passing hour, until dawn. 

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The universe has 10 times more galaxies than scientists thought

There are almost 10 times more galaxies in the universe than we once thought, according to a new analysis by Hubble Space Telescope. Counting all the galaxies in the universe is hard. So hard, it seems, that it's possible to miss billions of them.

The new analysis shows that there are about 2 trillion of them, up from about 200 billion.

It's the first major revision to the number since 1995, when scientists turned Hubble's gaze on one section of sky for 10 days and created an image, unveiled in 1996, that NASA called "mankind's deepest, most detailed optical view of the universe."

Based on the single section of sky and the galaxies that showed up in it, astronomers extrapolated that the entire universe should have about 200 billion galaxies. But that far from settled the question. Twenty years later, the new analysis begins by noting that the number of galaxies in the universe is still "a fundamental question."

The study was led by Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham and accepted for publication in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

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Our solar system may soon have a ninth planet

Researchers from the University of Michigan have recently discovered a new planet that exists in our solar system. This newly discovered "dwarf" planet, dubbed as 2014 UZ224 is just beyond the orbit of Pluto. Astronomers believe that the solar system may soon have a ninth planet.

The newly discovered planet, 2014 UZ224 is approximately 330 miles across, which is much smaller than Ceres, another dwarf planet which has a diameter is 580 miles. This makes the new planet remarkably small and it also fits the definition of a dwarf planet, as considered by NASA.

Scientists are still not sure about the exact orbital path of this new dwarf planet but they believe that a single orbit around the sun would be roughly 1100 Earth years. Moreover, the distance of the new dwarf planet and the Sun is approximately 8.5 billion miles.

The team of researchers from the University of Michigan, led by David Gerdes found this new dwarf planet, using "Dark Energy Camera (DECam)," a specialized camera that Gerdes developed. The scientific community is hopeful that this specialized camera will explain the role of dark energy that is leading to an accelerated expansion of the universe.

So far, five dwarf planets have been recognized in the solar system, namely, Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake. But, scientists feel that there are more out there that are yet to be discovered.

It was previously believed that beyond Pluto, the solar system is composed of icy small objects. But now studies emphasise that the area houses a ninth planet that is much larger than the Earth.

According to astronomer Mike Brown who discovered Eris in collaboration with Konstantin Batygin, the orbital discrepancy beyond Neptune is due to the presence of an unseen planet that is about 10 times the size of Earth.

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