Big asteroids hit Earth more frequently than thought, study suggests



However, the revised outcome is debatable.

According to a report, a recent asteroid impact research is stirring up debate among experts.

According to satellite data, a NASA-funded research that was given at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference last week contends that large asteroids strike Earth more frequently than previously believed. However, the journal Science reports that not everyone concurs with the analysis and that additional research is required to corroborate the data.

James Garvin, the head scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, oversaw the study(opens in new tab), which examined three impact scars using high-resolution data from a number of Earth-observing spacecraft. Large rings, according to Garvin's team, can be seen in the images and indicate that the craters are tens of miles broader than originally thought. This size modification, in turn, suggests that the collisions were much stronger than originally recorded.

According to Science, Garvin said during the presentation in The Woodlands, Texas, "It would be in the realm of significant crap occurring."

Since many inbound space objects burn up in the Earth's atmosphere and because wind and water erode the scars left by asteroids that do make it to the ground, calculating the impact rates of asteroids is a challenging scientific task. However, scientists can state with certainty that no large asteroids pose a danger to Earth for the immediate future. It is difficult to determine how frequently the moon or Mars is bombarded because the rate may change over time.

According to Science, scientists generally predict that an asteroid at least 0.62 miles (1 km) broad will strike Earth every 600,000 or 700,000 years. The new research significantly accelerates the rate by positing that four objects of that magnitude collided with Earth in the last million years.

However, Science heard from discussions with other academics at the meeting that they were advocating a more critical evaluation of the findings before completely revising all of our predictions for space rock encounters.

According to Anna Osiak, a crater researcher at the Polish Institute of Sciences, the rings noted in the recent study might not actually be crater characteristics after all. If they are, she continued, "there are a lot of space debris that may come and create a mess," so the consequences are worrying.

The scientific team leader for Canada's upcoming lunar rover, planetary scientist Gordon Osinski of Western University, also stated that he was unable to definitively spot rims in the study's data. He said, "I don't believe they say 'big structural rim,' because those characteristics are so delicate.

The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation mounted on the International Space Station and the ICESat-2 spacecraft, both of which use lidar altimetry, as well as commercial stereo imagery made accessible by private firms Planet and Maxar, served as the foundation for Garvin's team's research. The newer data, according to the scientists, is a "major advance over current terrain" used for impact estimates, such as NASADEM and Germany's TanDEM-X SAR, which offer resolutions of 40 feet (12 m) and 13 feet (4 meters), respectively.

Without research, Garvin stated to Science that "we haven't demonstrated anything," a statement that was repeated by Bill Bottke, a planetary dynamicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "I'm dubious. Before I believe it, I need to see much more "said Bottke.