Asteroid update: End of world on hold

CNN ^ | Friday, September 5, 2003 | Richard Stenger

[presidio9]

A newly discovered asteroid has zero chance of colliding with Earth in 11 years, although preliminary data had suggested such a doomsday scenario was possible, astronomers said this week.

New data allowed a more refined projection of the orbit of the space rock, dubbed 2003 QQ47 -- ruling out more than a dozen possible strike dates, according to the Near Earth Objects Information Center.

[presidio9]

[Constitution Day]

WE'RE ALL GONNA LIVE!

[Trampled by Lambs]

Doh! I guess I'd better stop maxing out all my credit cards, eh?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Do you think the government would want the fact that a collison with an asteroid was in the future, part of the public's knowledge? We would never know about it... until it was too late.

[w_over_w]

No matter . . . even if it were going to make impact, we can land a crew on it, drill to a depth of 850ft, place a nuke down the shaft and blow it up. There were two movies proving this.

[.cnI redruM]

I'm glad someone payed them more money to gather data. That's probably what made it miss. ;)

[Ol' Sox]

"Hello? Hyatt Regency Kauai? I'd like to cancel my month-long reservation of the Presidential Suite in 2014.... No, no, I'll still hang on to my reservation for 2027."

[maestro]

Interesting,....but,.....will it cause 'moon' problems for us?

:-(

[presidio9]

[theDentist]

"When I was vaccuuming the lower 40 in my daddy's Washington D.C. hotel/farm at a tender age of 13, I invented a super-collosal Big Fist to punch incoming asteroids back into space. It's outlined in my 2nd book of my youth 'In Defense of Earth and Mother Gaia's Children', a Fantasia Book publication. I had forseen this very eventuality. And I know just how to punch these threats down. But it'll only work if I am also President. So if you don't elect me by then, you're all doomed. Doomed!!"

[presidio9]

[w_over_w]

Yep! You have wisdom beyond your years.

[presidio9]

Actually I think he's saying "If JoLo ever approaches you to make a romantic comedy, run!"

[rs79bm]

Ohh good. Next time, I prefer they just not tell us... jeez...

[Ranxerox]

LOL

P.S. Judging from some of your other posts Doc, I think your NO2 tank is leaking.

[dirtboy]

A newly discovered asteroid has zero chance of colliding with Earth in 11 years, although preliminary data had suggested such a doomsday scenario was possible, astronomers said this week.

I guess shorting Microsoft stock wasn't such a good idea after all.

[MalcolmS]

Have you ever noticed the timing on these things.

Day 1: Asteroid may hit with 1:xxxx odds on such and such a date.

Day 2: Don't panic, a hit has been ruled out.

Now it seems to me that it should take several more days to a week to take more enlist the help of other observatories, wait for the earth and the object to move in orbit, take exposures, digitize the film, run the calculations etc.

It's like they issue the press release with all the data available, then wait till the next day to press the 'equals' key on the calculator.

It's like they want to scare us, but not too much. I'm sure it can't be connected with wanting a grant to study NEOs or anything. (For the record, I am in favor of such grants, BTW.)