Posted on 07/28/2011 8:47:39 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
A stream of dusty fragments from a comet born in the outermost reaches of the solar system has hit the Earth on a path that leads astronomers to conclude the comet itself could be "potentially hazardous" if it crashes into the planet.
The comet's location is unknown, making it difficult to say when it will approach Earth, but "the orbits of the dust trail tells us that the comet is on a path that could eventually hit us," said Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View.
"It's very unlikely," he conceded Wednesday. "Such impacts are extremely rare in Earth's history."
The trail of dust grains, known as meteoroids, were shed by the comet long ago as it passed the sun and Earth on a long orbit that could have taken thousands of years to complete, Jenniskens said.
The comet was born billions of years ago and trillions of miles away in the cold comet nursery called the Oort Cloud, and streams of the comet's dusty progeny have returned to Earth once or twice every 60 years or so when their orbits come under the influence of Saturn and Jupiter, Jenniskens said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The odds are we will have a balanced budget before we get hit by a wayward OOrt object(s). Place your bets.
Abbadon...................
“It’s very unlikely,” he conceded Wednesday.”
I guess after 100 or so years, whether he is right or wrong will have no meaning to anyone on earth now.
Look for more observatory alarms about impacts, Hurricane Center alarms about storms, geological alerts about earthquakes, CDC concerns about microbes, EPA concerns about airborne and waterborne toxins, National Park Service concerns about Eagles and Bear management, and doomsday warnings from every government agency.
For it is cut the budget time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Not that we have a program to launch shuttles to land on it, drill a hole and nuke it. Just sayin’. ;-)
-Lucifer's Hammer
“It’s very unlikely,” he conceded Wednesday.”
“Unexpected” as they say.
Castro will probably still be giving speeches
about the great cuban social revolution when it
hits.
elenin?
we will know by October
Then the second angel sounded: And something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.—Revelation 8:8
Harry Stamper....Where are you!!!!!!!
“I’d like to name her Dotty after my wife”
This thing will stay far away from earth (and probably self-destruct) if humans are smart enough to do one thing: send it a little song. “It’s a world of laughter a world of tears; it’s a world of hopes and a world of fears...” ;-)
Hopefully it hits here 38.889914E,-77.009098N.
No kidding? These astronomers have concluded that an object from space with a really large mass might be hazardous if it collides with earth? They're geniuses. GENUISES, I tell you!
Great book!
Paging Bruce Willis, Ben Afflack and Steve Buschemi. LOL!!
Karl: Sir, I’m retired navy, I know all about classified. But one more thing. The person that finds her gets to name her right?
Dan: Yes-yes that’s right, that’s right.
Karl: I wanna name her Dottie after my wife. She’s a vicious life-sucking bitch from which there is no escape.
Yeah. I've heard stories about that place. The Oort Cloud Nursery has been cited numerous times by inspectors and is generally recognized as the worst cold comet nursery in the universe. It creates some real troublemakers. I read somewhere that something like 42% of all comets that later go on to intentionally collide with inhabited planets come from the Oort Cloud.
I'm going to contact my congressman and demand that he sponsor a bill to eliminate all federal funding to the Oort Cloud Cold Comet Nursery, and I suggest everyone else do the same...
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