Off The Record
People Share The Same Chilling Reaction To This Incredible Image Of An Asteroid In Space
Even though it’s terrible when giant boulders are hurtling through space at breakneck speed, one image of an asteroid has made many people shiver.
NASA estimates that there are between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids in space that are as large as 1 kilometre in diameter, and that’s only the large ones. Millions of smaller ones exist as well.
NASA warned earlier this year that an asteroid named 2024 YR, which is located in orbit tens of thousands of miles away, might begin to threaten our planet as early as 2032. The asteroid is the size of the Statue of Liberty in New York.
Consider Donald Johnson, which was developed some 150 million years ago and is as large as two Central Parks in New York arranged end to end.
But the most recent commotion is being caused by a single, seemingly unimportant space rock, as a close-up photo is giving many people the creeps.
This particular asteroid, Ryugu, has one of the “clearest ever taken” of all the asteroid types.
The photograph was captured by the Japanese asteroid sampling mission Hayabusa-2, which in 2020 brought samples of the asteroid back to Earth for analysis.
The significance of the asteroid was described by NASA, which stated, “Asteroid Ryugu, a near-Earth and potentially hazardous asteroid, is classified as a Cb-type asteroid.”
It is around one kilometre broad and composed of “water-rich and carbonaceous materials”, they stated, adding that scientists planned to investigate it in order to gain knowledge about the solar system’s evolution.
Even while seeing the rock so clearly is exciting and fascinating, there is one aspect of it that has unnerved some people, and that is just the reality of how dark space is.
Images of the ocean at night may be the closest we get to witnessing a complete lack of light, but space is clearly darker and consequently far more menacing.
The asteroid’s pitch-black surroundings have left dozens feeling uneasy, and they have expressed their feelings about the experience on social media.
One person wrote, “Imagine the last time that thing was as close to another light source,” while another said, “Outer space seems less like a star ocean and more like an infinite void.”
“Agree, the complete void of space is so unsettling,” another person commented.
A fourth chimed: “OMG! At first glance I thought this was the bottom of the ocean.”
As others noted, just picture yourself out there, alone.
“If we’re out in that blackness, imagine what else is out there…”
Some astronauts, however, said that cruising through space was anything but lonely.
When Michael Collins, the Apollo 11 command module pilot, circled to the dark side of the Moon, he became the most alone person in the universe.
However, he claimed that during his journey, he had “awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation”.
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