Huge asteroid to fly safely by Earth Monday

Space.com ^ | February 17, 2014/

[BenLurkin]

Near-Earth asteroid 2000 EM26 poses no threat of actually hitting the planet, but the online Slooh Space Camera will track the asteroid as it passes by Earth on Monday. The live Slooh webcast will start at 9 p.m. EST (0200 Feb. 18 GMT), and you can also watch the webcast directly through the Slooh website.

You can also watch the asteroid broadcast live on Space.com. Scientists estimate that 2000 EM26 is about 885 feet in diameter, and it is whizzing through the solar system at a break-neck 27,000 mph, according to Slooh. During its closest approach, the asteroid will fly about 8.8 lunar distances from Earth. [See photos of potentially dangerous asteroids]

[Gadsden1st]

Won’t work. It will cause global warming.

Seriously, I have commented in the past that we should just blow it up with as many nukes as it takes, and was quickly rebuked here on FR. with that not being a good idea cause the pieces would cause more damage.

Can not understand why the blast would not cause some of the pieces to be diverted to miss all together, some to be vaporized, etc.

Seems the only politically correct way to divert is through focusing a solar beam to cause portion to vaporize with the resulting push to GENTLY move it off course. Or land something on it GENTLY that would then use some form of propulsion to GENTLY move it off course. etc. etc.

[SunkenCiv]

It’ll be nice for people with decent telescopes.

I’d like for the spacewatch people to spot a big rock that is going to hit the Moon, we’d get the show without the mess.

[zeugma]

it is whizzing through the solar system at a break-neck 27,000 mph,

Relative to what? Everything in the solar system has a considerable amount of inherent cumulative momentum. Let's take the earth for example: For this purpose, you can ignore rotational movement, but it is moving around the earth-moon barycenter. It also travels around the sun. The solar system itself rotates around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy also has velocity relative to other nearby galaxies, and other points in the universe as well.

Taken all together, the total velocity (even subtracting the rotational vector) is considerable. Now, add all that up and you get a number (I don't know what it is, and it changes moment my moment, but I know it is not a small number). Now, if this asteroid is approaching the earth from 'behind' it's absolute speed relative to the earth might be considerably less than if it were approaching directly from the 'front' of the planet's cumulative vector of motion.

On a related side-note... this is one of the things I really dislike about most time-travel stories. Almost no-one takes into account the fact that the earth moves! If you were to go a few seconds into the future, you could very well be either way up in the atmosphere, or deep beneath the crust. Either way, you're probably not going to have a great day if you don't have a vessel designed to handle the conditions where you pop up. Move a day in the future and you will be in outer space, and will have to travel a considerable distance to earth, if you only move in time, and not in space as well.

/rant off

[SunkenCiv]

Ten Thousandth Near-Earth Object Unearthed in Space
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-207

Surprising Recent Discoveries of Three Large Near-Earth Objects
( 2013 US10, 2013 UQ4, 2013 UP8 )
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news181.html

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/chelyabinsk/index

http://phys.org/news/2014-02-potentially-hazardous-asteroid-em26-earth.html

> ...on February 15, 2013... something else unexpectedly tore through the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, damaging thousands of houses, breaking innumerable windows, and causing injuries from broken glass. This object, later discovered to be an asteroid as well, was 65 ft (20 m) in diameter and exploded 18 miles above Siberia releasing the equivalent energy of more than 20 plus atomic bombs (approximately 460 kilotons of TNT)... the Russian government announced that ten gold medals for winners on February 15th at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics will be embedded with Chelyabinsk meteor fragments.

[KoRn]

Yeah, that would be very cool! ....And quite educational.

[SunkenCiv]

the Slooh website wouldn’t load for me, this mirror does:

http://www.space.com/19195-night-sky-planets-asteroids-webcasts.html

[Cyber Liberty]

Are the people predicting this the same ones who said that old Soviet satellite was going to come down yesterday? Last I checked, it was still 250 miles up.

[SunkenCiv]

A Celestial Collision [1178 AD, a different Canterbury tale]
Alaska Science Forum | February 10, 1983 | Larry Gedney
Posted on 9/15/2004 12:04:28 PM by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1216757/posts

[Verginius Rufus]

Huge Asteroid to fly Safely by Earth Monday

I am relieved to know that the asteroid will not be harmed.

[SunkenCiv]

Responding to Potential Asteroid Redirect Mission Targets
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-052

[ConservativeMind]

Actually, a new study says that nukes, set off a fraction of a second apart in succession, could easily cause a reverberating shock wave that would dissolve the threat.

Your thinking is scientifically valid.

[Zionist Conspirator]

What happens to the "iron laws of history" and the "inevitable" secular paradise at the end of time if something takes the earth out before we get there?

Hmmm.