Alledged asteroid is 2 killometers around?
Rather overblown in the artists rendering, wouldn't you say?
Much like this article.
Hey honey, what's for dinner?
Article Posted: July 23, 2002 Asteroid 2002 NT7 could hit in two decades; 2002 NY40 passes by August 17; and a large NEA search telescope is proposed.
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1.) NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID (NEA) 2002 NT7
A small NEA currently under observation has a remote possibility of hitting the Earth in 2019. The possibility will most likely be resolved within the next few days as new observations come in. It is reported here as an example of the sort of “detective work” associated with some of the newly discovered NEAs. (Assuming that you see nothing more posted here, you can assume that subsequent observations showed this object not to be a problem).
Comments from Maria E. Sansaturio and Giovanni V. Valsecchi
Asteroid 2002 NT7, a relatively large (H=16) Apollo with a still rather poorly determined orbit, has been on the Risk Pages of both NEODyS and JPL since July 18, as it is associated to a number of Virtual Impactors. With the shrinking of the uncertainty region due to the accumulation of astrometric observations, many of the VIs found associated with the initial, very uncertain, orbit have disappeared, as is normal in such cases. Of those that have survived until today, the one related to an Earth collision on 1 February 2019 has gone up in the Palermo Technical Scale, reaching the value of +0.18, according to the computations made in Pisa. This means that, for the first time, the probability of a specific impact of a Near-Earth Asteroid turns out to be larger than that of the "background".
The asteroid is easily observable; in fact it is observed practically every night, and its visibility will remain very good for the coming two months. As new observations come in, the situation will evolve in the next days and, as usual, either the probability associated with this VI will go up somewhat, or, more probably, it will disappear.
The larger problem might be one that appears harmless, then suddenly becomes a threat. To the unprepared.
Cool. I didn't even know that there was a "Palermo" Technical Scale of Threat. But what is 0.06? What if utter certainty is 0.10?
Alledged asteroid is 2 killometers around?
Rather overblown in the artists rendering, wouldn't you say?
Much like this article.
Hey honey, what's for dinner?
"This is because the problem of Near-Earth Objects is now being properly addressed," he said.
I must have missed it. How is the problem being addressed?
Probably by raising taxes and outlawing SUVs or something equally useful.
Asteroids:
Deadly Impact
National GeographicShoemaker:
The Man Who Made An Impact
by David H. LevyRestless Earth Collection
National Geographic
Is Dr. Whitehouse sure that this asteroid is not named "Wormwood?"
