Posted on 11/11/2009 3:44:30 PM PST by null and void
Asteroid passes just 8,700miles from Earth - with only 15 hours warning
Its orbit brought it 30 times nearer than the Moon
Don't panic! Although the asteroid passed within 9,000 miles of Earth it measured just 23ft across and wouldn't have dented the surface (artist's illustration) site where meteorite hit
the tumbling rock was only 23ft across. Similar sized objects pass by this close to Earth about twice a year and impact on the planet about once every five years.
Astronomers believe the object, called 2009 VA, would have almost completely burned up while entering Earth's atmosphere, causing a brilliant fireball in the sky but no major damage to the surface.
The path of the asteroid 2009 VA, which passed well within the Moon's orbit last Friday
Nasa's Near Earth Object Programme plotted the orbit of the object and determined that although it would fly extremely close to our planet it wouldn't hit us.
It was the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.
The Nasa NEO programme aims to detect and track at least 90 per cent of the 1,000 asteroids and comets that approach Earth and are larger than 0.6miles in diameter, by 2020.
They monitored a 100ft asteroid that whizzed 45,000 miles above the Earth's surface on March 2 this year. A similar sized object slammed into Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. The impact created a blast so powerful it levelled 1,200 square miles of forest.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
We can hope!!
“Lucifer’s Hammer”
~Larry Niven
ping
This asteroid...
which we inherited after years of neglect, denial and inattention...
they’re hoping to catch 90% of them by 2020.. gulp. Good.
Ice cream sundae...
I’ll bet that George Bush knew about this asteroid a LONG time ago!
How about Washington DC?
My favorite scene was the last surfer up in California on the tsunami,until a large apartment building loomed...
/grin
The asteroid was headed directly for Earth at the time, and was diverted at the last moment by a mighty gust of hot air - turns out Obama was giving a speech at the time ...
The Ice Cream Sunday was a lot bigger than this rock.
I think Barringer was 300 feet, this one would have made a bang and a crater for sure.
NASA could find them, but then what? NASA under TOTUS isn’t funded to send up bottle rockets with his lack of vision.
Whose going to save us then? The Russians or Chinese? Please.
Too bad the bs the msm and this administration produce couldn’t be used as an effective shield against killer asteroids. That’s the only way we’d escape harm.
15 hour notice means kiss yer arse goodbye if you are near the strike.
Barringer was an iron meteorite and was able to punch through the atmosphere without breaking up.
It broke up real good when it got to the ground though.
The ObaMessiah saved us.
Worship
Obey
Do not question
How about Washington DC?
No FReepers in mecca...
We’ll need a place to house the Americans once we retake government. No point wasting all those perfectly good buildings.
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