NASA image depicts the paths of both safe and hazardous asteroids

Jul 30, 2012 15:02 GMT  ·  By
Diagram showing the orbits of the four rocky planets in the solar system, alongside the paths of asteroids around Earth
   Diagram showing the orbits of the four rocky planets in the solar system, alongside the paths of asteroids around Earth

This seemingly complex NASA diagram illustrates the orbits of several important objects or classes of celestial bodies around the Sun. The star is obviously in the middle, in bright yellow. The three gray rings around it represent the orbits of Mercury, Venus and Mars.

Naturally, the bright green circle shows the path our planet takes around the Sun. The reason its path is colored is so that we can compare it to the orbits taken by near-Earth asteroids, which are illustrated here in blue, and to the paths of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), shown in red.

PHAs are part of the class of celestial bodies broadly known as near-Earth objects. They are the ones that astronomers tend to warn of. If one of the asteroids in this group is set on a collision course with our planet, then it would survive reentry, and cause damage on the ground.

The amount of damage such an impact would cause is hard to predict. Its location and strength would be determining factors, but let's just say that a large asteroid impacting the planet will do more than just cause a simple crater.