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hi welcome to the international space

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station flight control room as promised

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we have a guest with us here on the pao

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console today paul abel who is the lead

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scientist for planetary small bodies and

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he is going to tell us a little bit

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about subjects i think it's of interest

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to a lot of people the meteor that hit

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the ground in russia on friday thanks so

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much for coming paul thank you very much

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for having me

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well okay so tell us what exactly

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happened on friday let's start there

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okay so friday morning about 9 20 in the

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morning rush the time

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we had an object that came in and it

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exploded in the upper atmosphere over

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chapelensk

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russia it's a town in the southern

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murals in russia okay and it was a

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meteor

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yeah it actually was a small asteroid or

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a big meteor either one

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it's the the asteroid was about 15

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meters in diameter came in very fast

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about 18 kilometers per second and we

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think exploded at an altitude of about

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20 kilometers

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it exploded before it hit the ground it

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didn't actually hit the ground i guess

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yeah that's right so this was an air

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burst um meteorites hit the ground this

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actually object didn't hit the ground

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intact it actually burst or exploded

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about 20 kilometers up and fragments

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actually fell to the ground so right now

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what the russians are doing are actually

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trying to recover those fragments

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do you know anything at this point about

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what the meteor was made of or where it

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was coming from anything like that yeah

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actually we think the the meteor or the

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asteroid was made of rock so we think a

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15 meter diameter rocky asteroid the

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reason we think that is because it had

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actually burst at altitude if it was a

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solid iron

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it may have made it all the way to the

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ground before exploding in the air we

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also have some fragments initial reports

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from the russians suggest it may be a

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rocky material what causes it to explode

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in the air rather than go all the way to

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the ground

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so rocky asteroids are a little bit

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weaker than the solid iron if you think

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of battleship armor it's very very tough

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very strong rock is not nearly as strong

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and moving so fast it gets to a certain

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point in the atmosphere where the

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density of the atmosphere the lower

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atmosphere causes the asteroid actually

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to explode it can't punch its way

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through and that's why they had the air

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burst okay and i guess it's unusual

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fairly unusual for one to make its way

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through our atmosphere at all right yeah

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usually the ones that have to make it

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through the atmosphere are in intact at

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hyper velocity are much much bigger

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you think about the dinosaur impact 65

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million years ago that was a much much

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bigger asteroid that was about a 10

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kilometer diameter asteroid and that

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made an impact crater all the way to the

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ground in mexico this one was much

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smaller like i said 15 meters in

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diameter and it exploded at altitude

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some piece of it actually made it to the

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ground but they just fall they don't

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come in at high speed

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okay and how often would you say that

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that happens

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so we get hit by material all the time

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the earth sweeps up about 80 to 100 tons

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of meteor meteorites meteor material so

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there's a lot of stuff falling on us but

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it's usually very small and we don't

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notice it our atmosphere protects us

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so that smaller size stuff we don't

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really worry about

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something like this size

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and a little bit bigger happens maybe

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once every hundred years the last time

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we had an event of this magnitude was in

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1908 over tunguska siberia and russia as

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well but that was a much bigger object

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it was about a

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50 meter object and that exploded again

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at altitude but had much more energy

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associated with it

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okay so they're

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reasonably rare we don't have to worry

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about one happening every day um the two

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that you mentioned both were over russia

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could it happen anywhere yeah these

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these objects come come in all the time

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we have basketball-sized things hitting

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the earth probably about once a month

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the reason why these things happen in

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russia is russia is just a big landmass

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it's just a coincidence that the last

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big one happened in siberia this one

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happened in the southern urals russia is

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just a very large land mass there's

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nothing unique about russia

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these things don't have an agenda

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against russia it's just

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la russia is a very large landmass and

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these things happen and fall all over

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the world in fact we have meteorites in

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antarctica we have a team that goes down

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there every year and recover meteorites

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from antarctica so this type of material

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they fall all over the earth and i know

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y'all keep track of a lot of what's

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orbiting in space in part to make sure

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that the space station is not going to

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come across any of its paths right yeah

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that's correct so there's another

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department so

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i am associated with a near-earth object

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program so natural

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asteroids and meteorites and things and

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there's another program office that's

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concerning itself with orbital debris

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and we track the orbital debris we make

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sure the station and any other

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satellites are safe and if if need be we

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can maneuver out of the way okay and

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orbital debris is man-made generally

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yeah it's man-made space junk it's bits

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of satellites rocket bodies things like

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that that are no longer in use and still

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flying around the orbit of earth and so

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a lot of times when we hear the space

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station has to move to avoid it's

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usually something it's usually orbital

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debris right it's usually man-made

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that's correct it's usually orbital

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debris yeah okay um now do we keep track

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of things like meteorites and stay out

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of their way as well so yes just like we

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keep track of orbital debris we keep

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track of these asteroids

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we do have a survey program ground-based

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survey program

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that keeps track of as much of these

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asteroids as we can

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right now we have about 9 600 near-earth

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objects being tracked and cataloged 9

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600. 9 600 yeah there's actually there's

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a lot more out there this is what we

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know right now in our in our current

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catalog

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the biggest is about 30 kilometers the

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smallest is a few meters across

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just so you know um you know the big

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ones uh like the 30 kilometer on station

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there's no danger from those guys right

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so the thing that we're working on right

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now is concentrating on finding all the

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one kilometer diameter sized objects and

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up one kilometer that's still pretty big

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yeah it's really big and the reason why

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we concentrate on those is we want to

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make sure that the earth is safe the one

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kilometer and up the bigger guys are the

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ones that can give us a bad day a really

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bad day sort of like global devastation

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so we concentrate on those first and

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we're actually doing a really good job

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on those guys we've got about 95

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of those guys cataloged we know where

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they are they're not in dangerous orbits

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and there's no threat to the earth we

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still got a little bit of work to do we

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get about another five percent uh to

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find

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and then we have to start working on the

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smaller ones and this is where we we

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need a little bit more effort and work

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and we're working on that very hard

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right now how do you how do you find

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them to begin with big ones are small

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really good questions so one of the best

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ways to do it is through telescopes

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right

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these asteroids

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reflect

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sunlight off their surface they don't

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give light off they look like stars

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except they move very quickly so we use

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ground-based telescopes looking in

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optical wavelengths just visible light

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and we try and scan the sky and we pick

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them up and catalog them and track their

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orbits that way

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can you do that with just any telescope

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or does that have to be a pretty

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powerful one

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it has to be a little bit sophisticated

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we we have some big telescopes we have

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meter meter sky size class telescopes

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we also have one space based asset that

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has been helping us too called neowise

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that

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currently is offline right now but we're

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hoping to bring it back

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it's been it's been doing some great

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stuff for us but the telescopes that are

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typically used aren't really really big

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they're not um like the eight meter or

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ten meter class but they're a few meters

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a few meters across it's mainly more the

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software and the people behind them uh

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that do the job and we also have i

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should point out some very good

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professional level amateurs they don't

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get paid like i do working for nasa but

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they're very very good and they actually

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help us out a lot tracking and keeping

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track of where these guys are well

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that's interesting a pretty big network

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you said i wouldn't say it's a real big

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network but it's a sizable network it's

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an international cooperative network we

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have telescopes in the northern

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hemisphere in the southern hemisphere

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all over the world and helping us to

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keep track of these objects that's great

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so i know there was some confusion

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though on friday about one of these

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larger objects that y'all had been

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tracking i think a da-14 yes 2012 da14

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this was an object that was about 50

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meters across and

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we discovered it um a year ago and

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actually was a one of these professional

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amateur groups that i mentioned earlier

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that actually discovered this particular

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object wow and um yeah they they uh did

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a great job and we were able to track it

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and we knew that it was going to make a

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very close approach uh to the planet so

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we were all set up watching for that the

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russian event that happened was a

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complete coincidence it was in no way

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related to

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da14 2012 da14 the orbits are completely

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different

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the orbit of the russian event was an

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east-west uh entry and the orbit of da

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14 was north sorry south to north so no

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way related okay it's completely

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separate just happened to take place on

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the same day exactly pretty big

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coincidence a remarkable coincidence yes

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okay um but now so the one in russia if

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that had

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been over the ocean or something like

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that would we have known about it

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yeah we would have known about it um i

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don't think we would have as good video

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and one we had remarkable videos and

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we're really anxious to look at that

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data

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basically in russia they had all these

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dash cams and a lot of security camera

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footage so it happened over a major city

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uh population center so we got lots of

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good footage if it happened over the

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ocean you wouldn't have the video but we

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would be able to know about it we have

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satellites in orbit

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that look for these type of explosions

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we also have infrared infrasound

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stations these are stations set up

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to monitor big explosions basically

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nuclear explosions sort of part of the

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nuclear test ban treaty and they monitor

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and listen for explosions and so they

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would have picked up this event even if

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it had been over the open ocean so it's

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not happening every day and we just

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don't know about it because it's not

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over city exactly yeah we even know that

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it's not happening every day all right

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um well what what's next what do you do

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at this point to learn how to learn more

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or go on from here so one of the things

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we've got to do is obviously we'd like

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to recover as many fragments and pieces

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as we can there's supposedly a very

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large fragment that fell in a lake uh

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punched this way through the ice so we

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were in the process of working with our

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russian colleagues to try and recover

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that we'd also get like to get an idea

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of the composition of the object find

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out exactly what was made of and then do

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some more analysis and sort of fine-tune

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the the mass

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and the size of the object and like i

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said it's between 15 and maybe 17 meters

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in diameter estimated mass is anywhere

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from 64 100 to 7 700 metric tons so it

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was a sizable object sounds like what

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can you learn from the fragments well

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from the fragments we can learn um what

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the original asteroid this is a piece of

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a bigger asteroid so learn about where

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it came from

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back out its orbit from the trajectory

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we have a preliminary orbit so we know

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that this was a a near-earth asteroid

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obviously it came and crossed our or

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orbit and hit the earth

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we want to know where it came from how

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long it's been in space we can get an

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idea by some of the fragments we can

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find out how how long it's been in space

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and when it was liberated from its

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parent body that's very interesting from

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an orbital dynamic standpoint because it

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tells us how fast things come from the

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main asteroid belt which is located

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between mars and jupiter and how fast

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things get to earth so it's another test

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of that we'd also like to learn about

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the composition because that tells us

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a little bit about its internal

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structure its strength so in future

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events we have an idea of how far these

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things can penetrate into our atmosphere

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and how how big a size range we have to

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be worried about before we have to take

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mitigation steps to prevent damage

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wow so lots to learn from that and we do

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that kind of work here at js johnson

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space center right yeah we do we we have

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astro materials research and expiration

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science directed which i am a part of

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and

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that type of information from the

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samples that we bring back here in our

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laboratories do you think you will get

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some samples from this to analyze the

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goal is to get a sample at least some

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samples from this event bring it back to

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johnson and find out all we can about

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the about the object okay well maybe

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we'll have to check back in with you

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then after you've learned a little bit

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more certainly thanks so much for

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talking with us again this was paul abel

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the lead a small body