Posted on 09/07/2014 5:37:19 AM PDT by John W
On Sunday afternoon — at 2:15 pm Eastern time, to be exact — a small asteroid will whiz by the Earth.
Don't worry: it'll miss us by about 25,000 miles. To be clear, there is zero chance it can hit us. This is certain.
But in the long-term, worrying a little about asteroids isn't an unreasonable idea. Now, the odds of a massively destructive asteroid impact at any given time are tiny — but the potential costs would be enormous. Yet we still haven't invested in all the infrastructure needed to spot small asteroids with much warning (we spotted this one less than a week ago). And we've done nothing to develop the ability to divert a larger one if it threatened us.
We'll be totally fine on Sunday — in fact, the asteroid will be small and far enough away that you won't be able to see it without a telescope. But it'd be great if we can use this sort of near-miss to rouse us from our species-wide slumber, and make asteroid detection more of a priority.
(Excerpt) Read more at vox.com ...
You don’t do science much do you?
The chances of an asteroid strike is close to a certainty given a large enough time line. Your idea of the “magnetic wall” and the asteroid belt is hysterical.
Look up at the moon some time. That will give you a clue.
Earth would look JUST LKE it, if we didn’t have weather and techtonic plate activity.
I was expecting an Earth shattering KABOOM.......!!!!!
earlier on FR:
Asteroid will zoom within 25,000 miles of Earth
AP via WISH-TV | September 4, 2014 | Marcia Dunn
Posted on 9/4/2014 2:39:06 PM by John W
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3200538/posts
Even with the active programs to find 'em, these little surprises keep popping up; the upshot is, the next civilization-ending impact event will have basically zero warning. Same goes for little boo-boos like that chunk of dirty ice that smashed into Siberia a few years ago.
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If you hunt, look close, there are several remnants of ancient crater impacts scattered across the earth. Out near Winslow Arizona there is a big crater in the desert that is from a recent impact.
Rather than have you look, here they are with maps and everything
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_on_Earth
/bingo
From the looks of the other comments, I’m not the only one.
Agreed. And we’re damn lucky to have the moon where it is. It seemed to have blocked quite a few major impacts from hitting Earth as well.
And if an asteroid of any size were on a collision course with the Earth, exactly what would/could we do to prevent it?
Answer: Not a d@mn thing. (Although Democrats would try to fund raise off the event.)
Chances are virtually 100% that between 10 minutes from now and the next 500,000 years, we will be hit by a 1 km asteroid and between 10 minutes from now and the next 100 million years, we will be hit by an asteroid comparable to the one in size that triggered the K–Pg extinction 65 million years ago.
Chances are virtually 100% that between 10 minutes from now and the next 100,000 years Earth will likely have undergone a supervolcanic eruption large enough to erupt 400 km3 of magma and between 10 minutes from now and the next 1 million years Earth will likely have undergone a supervolcanic eruption large enough to erupt 3,200 km3 of magma; an event comparable to the Toba supereruption 75,000 years ago.
And sometime in the next 1 million years Betelgeuse will go supernova. At night, it will be brighter than the full moon.
People laugh about this because we haven’t seen a big strike in historical times, so their bias is “can’t happen”. But it will. next week, next year, next century, we don’t know when but it will. Actually your actuarial risk of dying from an asteroid or comet strike is close to your risk of dying in a plane crash. It’s small but real.
Answer: Not a d@mn thing. (Although Democrats would try to fund raise off the event.)
I'm not even sure it should be something made public. The mass panic and pandemonium would be like no riot we could ever imagine.
The meteors that hit the moon, had the moon not been there, would not necessarily have hit the earth.
Not entirely sarcasm. A few months ago when all those meteorites were crashing into Russia, a CNN reporter asked Bill Nye if it was an effect of global warming. ‘Cuz everything is, you know.
Global warning crisis ain’t working out so well, asteroids are slowing working at replacing it.
The liberals will blame the Tea Party if it hits the planet.
The Moon is only 1/4th the diameter of the Earth, and hasn’t protected us beyond some of the craters seen on the lunar surface — but while those were forming, Earth was also getting struck. The difference is, impact is the dominant geological process on the Moon, and Earth has wind, rain, etc.
Good one...
Look up!!!
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