Every June 30, the world commemorates the Asteroid Daya day enacted by the United Nations to “raise public awareness of asteroid impact risks and inform crisis communication measures to be taken worldwide if there is a credible near-Earth object impact threat.”
But did you know that there is a NASA web application with which you can monitor near-Earth objects in real time and in 3D?
Is regarding Eyes On Asteroidswith which you can even confirm or rule out false news regarding asteroids by typing the name of the object and following its orbit.
In fact, you can open the application from any device that has an internet connection, such as a mobile phone, tablet or computer.
In this week of the asteroid, in Cocuyo effect We tell you more regarding this application.
Scientific data in your hands
Every year, scientists discover asteroids and comets that they call “near-Earth objects” or NEOs because of the closeness of their orbits to our planet.
Currently, regarding 28,000 objects are counted, but every day that number increases.
what it does Eyes On Asteroids is to use data from scientists to help visualize the orbits of objects in 3D, with the help of the mouse or touch of your device. There is also a slider with which you can travel back in time to find out the orbits of the NEOs.
Beat the fake news
On the website, NASA explains that many headlines describe all NEO approaches as “dangerous,” leading to a mass of fake news or misinformation.
But with the application you can see how distant they are from our planet. For this, there is the tab “Asteroid Watch”, where the next five close passes of asteroids can be observed.
In addition, they add the option “Learn”, where you can learn more regarding asteroid approaches or details to follow the trajectory of the asteroid Apophis on April 13, 2029.
If you want to start exploring the asteroids from your favorite device, go to Eyes On Asteroids.
Or if you want hunt new asteroids, you can learn to do it with the Larense Association of Astronomy (Alda)who runs the All-Venezuela Asteroid Search Programpromoted by the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC, in English). Click here and learn more.
