A Rock Moves In Space

theBrownfury writes: "The BBC is reporting here that a very large Earth collision course asteroid has been discovered. This asteroid, NT7, was first observed on July 5th and current data suggests an impact date of February 1st, 2019. NT7 is 2kms wide and on date of impact will be approaching Earth at 28km/s. An asteroid of this size is large enough to cause continent wide destruction. However astronomers are still cautious in reporting this asteroid as the orbit of NT7 has not been fully verified. Current data on NT7's orbit suggests it orbits the Sun every 837 days and travels in a tilted orbit from about the distance of Mars to just within the Earth's orbit." The BBC article's headline (and accompanying illustration) are more alarming than the story itself seems to warrant: this asteroid has been given a 0.06 on the Palermo technical scale, which means it shouldn't bump getting run over by a llama off your list of worries.

Comments

Re:Okayyy...

[aardvarkjoe]

Right. We know this from prior experience, because the US has always refused to pay more than 5% of the total cost of every endeavor that it's been involved in.

Be realistic. Even those who insist on calling the US names all the time generally wouldn't accuse us of being inactive. Should this happen, I would be willing to bet that the US would foot quite a bit more than their share of the bill (calculated either way that you gave above), and take charge of the operation to make sure it's completed. And when it was over, the US would say, "Yout guys all owe us one." After which everyone would go back to hating us.

Don't laugh yet.. :(

[SectoidRandom]

You may be joking but there is some truth to what you say, I think we may need something like this to open our eyes a little. A lot of evidence points to asteroid impact likely being the biggest actual threat to mankind, but despite this far to many short sighted politicians wont give it a second thought! Specifically I'm talking about the Australian govt who a while back cut all funds to asteroid search programs, virtually leaving the entire southern hemisphere unchecked for such potential threats.

Hope you don't feel too safe with the fact that NASA and many European astronomers are searching the skies daily for these threats... Someone's letting us down.
(nb yep im an aussie..)

moving in space

[Tablizer]

Regarding the title, "A rock moves in space".

Moving in space is relative. Relative to the earth, *every* rock in space is moving (unless maybe there is something in those Lagrange points, or whatever you call them.)

Further, the solar system is orbiting around the galactic center, and the galaxy (Milky Way) is moving toward the Virgo Cluster of galaxies.

Personally, I don't want to go the the Virgo Cluster. Too many galaxies there to bump into and trigger nasty big-star supernovas in the process. But I have no choice in the matter.

Damned gravity.

Re:run over by a llama?

[Jeremi]

Statisticaly he is just as likely to get ran over by llamas again as he was to get ran over by them the first time.

Yeah, but in real life, he'd be less likely, because he's learned his lesson and knows to keep his distance from the speeding llamas...