Not to worry. Astrobama will save us.
Posted on 02/10/2011 7:30:31 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
The date for Armageddon has been set, and it's not going to happen in 2012.
In 2004, NASA scientists announced that there was a chance that Apophis, an asteroid larger than two football fields, could smash into Earth in 2029. A few additional observations and some number-crunching later, astronomers noted that the chance of the planet-killer hitting Earth in 2029 was nearly zilch.
Now Russian scientists estimate Apophis will collide with Earth on April 13, 2036. These reports conflict on the probability of such a doomsday event, but the question remains: How scared should we be?
“Technically, they’re correct, there is a chance in 2036 [that Apophis will hit Earth]," said Donald Yeomans, head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office. However, that chance is just 1-in-250,000, Yeomans said.
NASA was quick to discount Russia's fears, however. “The situation is that in 2029, April 13, [Apophis] flies very close to the Earth, within five Earth radii, so that will be quite an event, but we’ve already ruled out the possibility of it hitting at that time,” Yeomans told Life’s Little Mysteries, Space.com's sister site.
An artist's concept of a catastrophic asteroid impact with the early Earth. NASA and other space agencies are discussing how would we prevent such asteroids collisions ... and they have some far-out ideas. slideshow
Russia is considering sending a spacecraft to a large asteroid to knock it off its path and prevent a possible collision with Earth. Just how would we prevent asteroids from colliding with Earth?
"No one should worry. Between Mars and Jupiter, we have an asteroid belt. There's all the asteroids going near the sun, and these objects are coming near the earth all the time," Tim Hill, space manager at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, told MyFoxTampaBay.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Yeah--Jeb Bush.
Not to worry. Astrobama will save us.
I feel so much better now.
Get your facts straight!
I wonder if NASA is still confused by that metric-English thing.
Two football fielda? About like a large atomic bomb, but nothing that will wipe out anything outside of a 50 mile radius or so. Sorry to disappoint all of those eagerly hoping for Armageddon.
(Thanks for the ping DuncanWaring!)
Hey! Maybe this thing could land on some vacant housing tracts in Vegas and change forever the global housing market!
Hmmm... Just one year after Social Security runs dry.
I would say its a possibility that we may experience an extreme but temporary magnetic pole shift before the end of this year.
A complete reversal would be....well....a BIG EFFING DEAL!
I picked a bad week to quit smoking. ;)
I remember when I thought my current age was old.
Crater diameter ≈5km.
[[I picked a bad week to quit smoking. ;)
]]
I was thinkin bout quitting, but now I’m too stressed out by the idea that I’ve only got another 20+ years to live- I’ll probably up my cigarette count so that hopefully I die earlier than 2036 as I don’t particularly want to die by getting hit on the head with a rock- how embarrasing
RSVP. Regrets only.
On the up side, the earth gets whacked before
the UNIX time stamp rolls over in 2038.
S**t! I’ll only be 94—that’s too young to go!
Note to self:
Perfectly okay to stay everyday in the year 2036.
“Hmmm... Just one year after Social Security runs dry.”
Maybe we’ve been underestimating the ability of our overlords to plan ahead...No wonder they keep kicking the entitlements crisis down the road.
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