[blam]

We're all gonna die?

[blam]

[Asclepius]

... 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.

[theDentist]

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.

[Rain-maker]

Quick, strap some rockets on it and send it to Saddam!

[Brad C.]

Gee, this is just about three hours from when I post this, and it's so cloudy out I won't see it coming.

[upchuck]

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.

[butter pecan fan]

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.

[Mitchell]

This object (2001 YB5) is big. Here are some comparisons, with approximate sizes for three actual impacts:

Tunguska, Siberia (1908)	50 m
Meteor Crater, Arizona (20,000 years ago)	100 m
2001 YB5 (now)	300 m
Chicxulub, Gulf of Mexico (65,000,000 years ago)	10,000 m

See 1908 Siberia Explosion: Reconstructing an Asteroid Impact from Eyewitness Accounts.

[Brett66]

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.

[spodefly]

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.

[classygreeneyedblonde]

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

[RightWhale]

there is nothing we could have done about it.

If they would get off their country estates and put some hardware in space, --prepositioning--, then there would be something that could be done. Cataloging the nasties is just another academic exercise.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

We're all gonna die?

You have doubts?

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[billbears]

bump