Read the story here http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/story.jsp?story=611219 But basically they say, based on current calculations this asteroid, the size of 3 football pitches, will miss earth just (you will be able to see it if you live in the UK), and this is due to happen on Friday 13th April 2029 (Note the Friday 13th here!!!).
why ? were you planning on smashing it up with your fists or something ?! while it may all be very well and goo dthat this thing misses earth, do they not think that maybe they should do something to either make it smaller (nuke it) or deflect its orbit a bit (nuke one side of it).
i learnt that in astronomy - what else are we going to use to deflect an asteroid. its a viable solution, but without an appropriate delivery method! an asteroid of that size has the kinetic energy of millions, if not hundreds of millions of nukes. If we can break the asteroid into sufficiently smaller pieces then many will burn up in the earths atmosphere (surface area is increased thus the entirety of it will burn up faster in smaller chunks than in one big one). at least thats in the area of what i was told/taught
Its going to miss by about ~22,000 miles....I say if it aint broke do go trying to fix it... I can see it now...blow up the rock and make 2 smaller peices, one hits D.C. and one hits London as we would be the morons to fire the weapons most likely...
22,000 miles? That's actually pretty close. If it does get that near, it's still going to cause widespread weather (bit more than a 'bad drizzle' one Sunday afternoon). With the Boxing Day earthquake, it was proved that the Earth had been shaken very, very slightly out of it's natural orbit - I wonder if this has been taken into account?
From the article it says it will be closer than some communication sats... Hadnt herd that about the orbit...I herd that it sped up the rotation by like a .000001 microsecond...Im sure if the orbit is messed up it will take years for it to effect it enough to be thousands of miles off course...
If the astroid is gonna go within the range of satellites, this means that the astroid is within the Earth's gravity, so wouldn't this gravity pull the astroid towards earth?
I bet its going to hit us. They are just buying time while they research a solution. If the everyone knew they only had 25 years or whatever until the world was destroyed all hell would break loose. Something like that would definatly be kept in the scientific community until a solution was found. No point in telling everyone the truth if they cant do anything about it. All it would do is make people live in fear of whats to come.
what are you all worrying about the aliens who have turned the said astroid into a space ship will start to slow it down soon then place it into orbit around the earth and provide everyone with a free 10000 TB internet connection
Eeek... although there are one of those every few years?? I remember one not so long ago and we didn't even hear about it after the initial newspaper article. Plus, we're overdue for so many other disasters that this is probably the least of our worries. Bush will have prolly blown up half the world b4 we get a chance to be hit by this asteroid thing.
while your scinical outlook on the world is disturbing, it may not be far wrong Tension seems to be rising in the "axis of evil" vs "USA" thing that seems to be going on. I personally doubt it will lead to nuclear winter, but still :S KingofHearts - ifr people thought they only had 25 years left to live, i dont think they would panic too much. Actually it might be nice. People would prepare themselfs for it, the world would change significantly. Initially there may be some chaos, but i think in the grand sceme we would deal with it, and get on with life until the inevitable day!
People would have more sex and marry that's for sure. Also, noone would save - there would be no point. Consumer spending would boom. The governments of the world would work together to nuke the thing though, 25 years is a long time to prepare.
why would ppl marry if life on earth were to end?? Society would crumble for sure. After all, if ppl are so uncivilised they can't queue up at ikea, i can't see them accepting their fate in an orderly fashion. the asteroid isn't really that big is it? 3 football pitches.... maybe a slight dink but nothing serious??
Didn't you read the article? If it did collide it would cause an explosion equivalent to about 20 hydrogen bombs being detonated simultaneously, turning vast areas of land into desert or generating a giant tsunami if it landed in the ocean. Certainly not enough to wipe out the entire human race but I wouldn't like to be one of the ones underneath those 20 hydrogen bombs when they dropped. Anyway it's not going to hit us so we're alright for now.
/me cynical as ever.... surely in the grand scale of things, 3 football pitches hitting the earth would be like the pointy end of a needle prodding a football? Totally agree that u wouldn't wanna be where it hits, but really can't see how in terms of physics it can do as much damage as they suggest.
I think the article said you'd be able to see it from the UK, so if it does hit, I think it'll hit the UK. Alright for now... not later.
