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Space Rock To Hurtle Past Earth
BBC ^
| 01-07-2002
Posted on 01/06/2002 7:20:43 PM PST by blam
click here to read article
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We're all gonna die?
1
posted on
01/06/2002 7:20:43 PM PST
by
blam
To: blam
2
posted on
01/06/2002 7:23:01 PM PST
by
blam
To: RadioAstronomer;RightWhale
Bump.
3
posted on
01/06/2002 7:24:43 PM PST
by
blam
To: blam
... its proximity reminds us just how many objects there are in space that could strike our planet with devastating consequences ...
I'll say. That giant arrow-like object looks particularly menacing.
4
posted on
01/06/2002 7:26:59 PM PST
by
Asclepius
To: blam
Y'ever notice these things always hurtle past Earth?
Don't any of them just meander by, stumble past,
or even just saunter through the 'hood?
I gotta study "hurtling", see if I can make some money at it.
To: blam
Quick, strap some rockets on it and send it to Saddam!
To: blam
Gee, this is just about three hours from when I post this, and it's so cloudy out I won't see it coming.
7
posted on
01/06/2002 7:35:21 PM PST
by
Brad C.
To: Asclepius
"...That giant arrow-like object looks particularly menacing. Do you think that's where Sagan got the name for his book, "Contact"?
We're fortunate that it doesn't appear to cross our orbit.
To: blam
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!At 0737 GMT on 7 January it will pass just 370,000 miles away from the Earth - close in cosmic terms.
Oh, nevermind.
9
posted on
01/06/2002 7:39:37 PM PST
by
upchuck
To: blam
Astronomers and archaeologists suspect that our planet is struck by a 300 metre object like 2001 YB5 about every 5,000 years or so, but this is an estimate based on a hunch rather than on any definite evidence. Assuming this is correct, and you're going to live another 100 years, the odds are one only in 50 that such a meteor will strike any point on the earth during your lifetime.
And any such strike would most likely hit water.
To: Asclepius
'That giant arrow-like object looks particularly menacing'It appears to be some sort of bird track -- sign left by an intergalactic pea-fowl or space chicken . . .
To: Crowcreek
ROFLMAO....almost spit up my coffee on the monitor...space chicken..lol
To: blam
13
posted on
01/06/2002 7:52:12 PM PST
by
Mitchell
To: butter pecan fan
"What does "if necessary" mean? The plane crashed into the Bank of America building. What threat would have necessitated a shoot-down if this action did not?" The Tunguska explosion occurred in 1908, they are estimated to occur every 80-100 years.
14
posted on
01/06/2002 7:52:47 PM PST
by
blam
To: Mitchell
The Arizona impact occurred 50,000 years ago.
15
posted on
01/06/2002 7:55:54 PM PST
by
blam
Comment #16 Removed by Moderator
To: blam
Man, I wish we had an effective space program. We could've sent astronauts to land on this thing, maybe attach a mass driver and put it at L5. At 370,000 miles it would've only taken about a week to get there.
17
posted on
01/06/2002 8:01:21 PM PST
by
Brett66
To: blam
I am less worried about the asteroid than about the Klingons around Uranus ... besides, there is some good cosmic news too:
Good news: Doomsday has been postponed
By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 06/01/2002)
Link
THE end is not as nigh as we thought. Scientists have found a mistake in the standard account of the future fate of the solar system and now believe that the Earth will not be destroyed when the Sun runs out of fuel.
For decades, astronomy textbooks have insisted that the Earth will be engulfed in an inferno billions of years from now as the Sun burns up its nuclear fuel and swells to become a gigantic red star.
Surrounded by the searing gas of the Sun's outer atmosphere, the Earth was expected to be dragged down to its doom deep within the Sun.
Now a team of astrophysicists at Sussex University has uncovered a significant flaw in the standard view of how the Sun will evolve, with dramatic consequences for the fate of our planet.
18
posted on
01/06/2002 8:14:55 PM PST
by
spodefly
To: blam
I did a little more research on this, and it turns out that there's quite a bit of uncertainty in the date. NASA says it occurred sometime between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago. See
this page at the JPL Near-Earth Object Program. That web page also gives 80 feet as the diameter of the object that hit, a little smaller than 100-meter figure from the other website I quoted above.
Thanks for bringing this out.
19
posted on
01/06/2002 8:30:49 PM PST
by
Mitchell
To: blam
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs are on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.
On 7 Jan 2002 there were 361 known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids
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