Asteroid that could’ve obliterated NYC skimmed past Earth – and NASA didn’t notice

www.dailystar.co.uk ^ | 12/08/2017 | By Rachel O'Donoghue

[Lonely Bull]

NYC needs it.

9-11 bad, asteroid good.

[Mastador1]

In the far more likely scenario that it hit the ocean, what (if any) negative consequences would result? The kinetic energy of a 32 meter rock zooming in a interplanetary speed must be enourmous but would it be enough to, for example, generate a small tsunami? Hydrogen bombs didn't, so I'm guessing no but who knows?

The whales, for the love of cod, think of the whales and sea life that would be destroyed! The loss of a city and a few million humans would be trivial compared to the life of just one whale!

[RegulatorCountry]

“Space boffins,” are those like tribbles or something? Sounds like vermin.

[AustinBill]

“Boffins” is British slang for “science nerds”.

[RegulatorCountry]

I know, I just think it's a funny word that does sound like some small, annoying critter.

So here's a Space Boffin with a fishbowl on it's head:

[SunkenCiv]

It's better to be safe than sorry, I wholeheartedly agree. It's 1,210 feet in diameter (not a sphere, more of a turd shape) and it's probably a loose aggregation of smaller chunks, but that would definitely leave a mark as it arrived like a shotgun blast with an assumed mass of 671,000,000 tons, kind of a lot, really. It would be a big owie.

[PIF]

8.73km/s or 19,828.45 mph for those that were wondering ...

[Red Badger]

boffins is a British-ism like ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’....................