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Simulation Of An Asteroid Impact In The Year 2880

JoeRobe writes "Researchers at UCSC have simulated a possible outcome of an impact by asteroid 1950DA when it passes near us in the year 2880. Note that there is a 0.3% chance of impact during that encounter. In the event that it impacts in the Atlantic, they predict that the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast. In addition to an assessment of the danger, their studies point out the resulting geologic features that we should be looking for now, which would indicate where and when such impacts have occured in the past."

411 comments

  1. Actually... by SquireCD · · Score: 5, Funny

    I believe that nuclear war will have killed us all by then. Don't worry about the comet.

    1. Re:Actually... by ramzak2k · · Score: 0, Funny

      nuclear war
      what is that ? I hope you meant NUCULAR war.

      --

      Siggy Say, Siggy Do
    2. Re:Actually... by krisp · · Score: 1

      Did you mean: NUCLEAR war

      I think you did!

    3. Re:Actually... by ramzak2k · · Score: 1

      Did you mean: NUCLEAR war

      Nope, I am darn sure that its either nucular or nuculer. Do you know better or George W Bush ?

      --

      Siggy Say, Siggy Do
    4. Re:Actually... by joFFeman · · Score: 1

      this shouldn't have been modded +funny... it should have been modded +insightful.

      --
      "Life is great; without it, you'd be dead." -Harmony Korine
    5. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      nuculer. if the simpsons has taught us anything, homer insists that he works in a nuculer power plant.

      and marge admires all the trees and foilage.

    6. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Why hasn't NASA figured out a way to use this asteroid to get somewhere? Think about it, asteroids are like interstellar trains. We should be figuring out how to hop on one of these things, find some life somewhere else, then hop back on the next one heading back toward Earth.

    7. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mount -t ext3 /dev/random /brain

    8. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      No Silly...
      In the year 2012 we create a super computer that runs a version of linux. For a change all commands are prefixed with 'nu'. A bug in the system causes all console-related commands to affect memory too. This remains undiscovered.

      In the year 2084 all humans transfer their 'selves' into this massive comp and cease to exist as biological organisms.

      In the year 2100 the system becomes self-aware.

      On the night if October 20th,2100 the system issues a clear command that is nuclear

    9. Re:Actually... by arivanov · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If us is US (the east coast), Cumbre Viejo would have wiped it twice by then. Actually it will do so within the next 100 years. Considering that the wave at Washington DC will be 15m+ methinks that it may not be such a bad idea.

      More info on BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/966968.stm

      I've been there. The volcano is awesome ;-)

      --
      Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
      http://www.sigsegv.cx/
    10. Re:Actually... by -brazil- · · Score: 2, Informative

      First, you're thinking about comets, not asteroids. The latter usually don't stray far from the sun. Second, it's more like interstellar snails. Comets that go out a significant distance take tens of thousands of years to do so. Finally, they usually still stay attached to our solar system.

      --

      The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
      --Henry Kissinger

    11. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The coast bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the east is europe + africa, isn't it?

    12. Re:Actually... by WormholeFiend · · Score: 1

      and the Carribean islands, Cuba, Central America, and some of the northeastern South America's coast

    13. Re:Actually... by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

      I don't know about nuclear war, but internet and computers will be gone. The only ones left will be luddites (per Bill Gates) and Amish farmers.

      I intend on passing down the story of the great meterorite to my children, and have them pass it on to their children and so on...as well as tails of the combustion engine, the electric generator, the light bulb and the silicon chip...hopefully my clan will be living on high ground far away from major bodies of water.

      --

      Lodragan Draoidh
      The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
    14. Re:Actually... by schmink182 · · Score: 2, Funny

      If not, it might help our enegry crisis, supposing we still have one in almost 900 years. Picture a *huge* trampoline in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This thing sits there waiting for the asteroid, and when it finally hits our trampoline, it takes all the force and converts it to usable energy. Afterward, we have the entire asteroid in tact sitting in the middle of the ocean. Alternately, if we've already solved the energy problem, we could convert the shock into light and have a huge light show, blinding all fish. Then they'd be easier to catch!

    15. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Asteroid transportation was figured out 25 years ago. To move the asteroid you push rock off the "back" end, probably with a magnetic catapult. If you're using this for interstellar transport it is called a "generation ship". Your research didn't find that?

      And asteroids and comets are not "interstellar trains". Some comets might get trapped by passing stars, but it is unlikely and only happens in astronomical time scales. You certainly can't be thinking that this particular asteroid is interstellar, as it clearly is hanging around our neighborhood and keeps making unwanted passes.

    16. Re:Actually... by ThaReetLad · · Score: 1

      You, my friend, are a nutcase, and as such welcome in my village any time you like.

      --
      You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
    17. Re:Actually... by axxackall · · Score: 1
      I don't know about nuclear war, but internet and computers will be gone.

      I think contraverally, all farmers will be gone, all that will be left will be Internet and computer. You can think matrix if you will.

      I think, by the end of this centure most of intellectual workers wil be connected to interned directly, by means of biocybernetics, rather that by means of keyboards and screens. Perhaps something like implanted PDAs right in the brain.

      At the same time, most agricultural production will move to artificial synthesis from actual soil fields. Also, at the same time most of electrical, mechanical and chemical manufactural plants will lose their last manual worker places.

      The social life (like meetings, arts) will go virtual. Thus, by the end of next centure, the human kind will sit being connected to Internet for doing their work *AND* for socializing, and being connected to food supply pipes.

      And of course, there will be a small group of people, partisans, who do not accept the progress, who live in caves and try to destroy the Matrix.

      Now, coming back to the subject, neither a nuclear war nor an asteroid impact will make a big diference as the Matrix (read: hotels, residence apartments) will go underground.

      --

      Less is more !
    18. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Got Pac-man? Nope
      Got Space Invaders? Nope
      Got Asteroids? No, but my dad does. Sometimes it gets so bad, he can't sit!

    19. Re:Actually... by zogger · · Score: 1

      Around here in bubba land it's "nooklure", not to be confused with a wallet full of benjamins and a platinum card in a strip club.

    20. Re:Actually... by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      And of course, there will be a small group of people, partisans, who do not accept the progress, who live in caves and try to destroy the Matrix.

      Descendents of the employees of the RIAA, MPAA, Disney and Microsoft, no doubt.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    21. Re:Actually... by Bull999999 · · Score: 1

      Good thing that I live in Colorado. My grave should be safe from the gaint waves.

      --
      1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
    22. Re:Actually... by Kwiik · · Score: 1

      intellectual workers will be connected to the internet directly, by means of biocybernetics, rather that by means of keyboards and screens. Perhaps something like implanted PDAs right in the brain.

      Ahh! So once again, "Spam" will be a deadly "material" that goes directly to infecting the brain. Fun fun fun.

      --
      Vehicle Stars used car search is my current project
    23. Re:Actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's probably more likely we'll all be burned up by a cosmic gamma burst.

  2. We'll all be dead by then... by tetrode · · Score: 1

    Our grand-grand-grand-children might worry about it, but we'll be dead by then

    1. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by JumperCable · · Score: 0, Funny

      That's great for you but what about those to have cryogenically frozen themselves waiting for technology to develop far enough to revive them!

    2. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by Eric+Ass+Raymond · · Score: 1
      Don't worry.

      By 2880 we will have developed amazing technology such as asteroid repellent beams, fusion and flying cars.

    3. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by Hellkitten · · Score: 1

      That's great for you but what about those to have cryogenically frozen themselves waiting for technology to develop far enough to revive them!

      Since the chances of a hit in water with following waves is the most likely just make sure they store you far from the coast, in a cave in the mountain, with backup power

      See, nothing to worry about

      --
      - We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
    4. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by JumperCable · · Score: 1

      Whoooo. Thanks! Now I can go back to sleep... now where did I put those 2 tons of ice cubes.

    5. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by styrotech · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't worry.

      By 2880 we will have developed amazing technology such as asteroid repellent beams, fusion and flying cars.


      Yeah right, next thing you'll be saying is that Duke Nukem Forever will be out by then!

    6. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by isorox · · Score: 1

      By 2880 we will have developed amazing technology such as asteroid repellent beams

      Make a change to the "woman repellent" I normally wear

    7. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      You can hope that someone will stay alive in the area and be able to revive you. And that they don't instead use your power supply to keep the refrigerator in the summer cabin running.

      Actually, with ice damage you're just frozen mush anyway. If someone managed to thaw you and feed oxygenated blood to your brain...you'd merely feel the world's worst ice cream headache before what was left of the brain cells oozed apart.

      Best to hope that the prediction of downloading your mind into a computer in 50 years is correct.

    8. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      By 2880 we will have developed amazing technology such as asteroid repellent beams, fusion and flying cars.

      I sure as hell hope not. People can't drive for shit right now, and you want to give them *flying cars*???

      Only if I can mount SAMs on my property, thanks.

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    9. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by BTM1001 · · Score: 1

      Will a wooden shack in the mountains do? We have a frozen corpse festival nearby:

      http://www.frozendeadguy.com/fdg/saga.htm

      The lower oxygen content at 1 mile above sea level is definitely starting to affect a few people's higher brain function.

    10. Re:We'll all be dead by then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no one cares

  3. Uhm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    their studies point out the resulting geologic features that we should be looking for now, which would indicate where and when such impacts have occured in the past.

    Craters?

    1. Re:Uhm... by canthusus · · Score: 5, Informative

      Craters are only visible for a short period, and for relatively small impacts. They erode.

      For older and larger impacts, you're looking for very different evidence: heavily brecciated rocks, shock quartz crystals, changes to crust/mantle interface, evidence of high pressure rocks. Further afield, evidence of global dust layers (esp contaminated with terrestrially unusual minerals such as iridium), evidence of "tidal wave" eg poorly structured jumbled marine deposits over a large area.

    2. Re:Uhm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought they were referring to the Grand Canyon. But we all know that came from the giant falling from the beanstalk.

    3. Re:Uhm... by IICV · · Score: 1

      Actually, all you need to look at for evidence of old comet impacts is the Gulf of Mexico. That one must have been a doozy.

    4. Re:Uhm... by AresTheImpaler · · Score: 1

      evidence of old comet impacts is the Gulf of Mexico
      gulf of mexico?? o damnit I will be one of the first ones to die..

    5. Re:Uhm... by KillerLoop · · Score: 1

      ... more like the Colorado river and ample amounts of time.

    6. Re:Uhm... by uberdave · · Score: 1

      Hudson's Bay in Canada is no slouch either

    7. Re:Uhm... by RodgerDodger · · Score: 1

      And large circular bodies of water... think the Gulf of Mexico.

      --
      "Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
    8. Re:Uhm... by RodgerDodger · · Score: 1



      Depends. Some craters are huge. Look at the Barrington Meteor Crater in Arizona. While that one is fairly recent (about 49,000 years), there's lot of other identifed that are significantly older.

      --
      "Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
  4. Huh ? by IanBevan · · Score: 1

    I'm glad that this date is > 24xx. "Asteroid may hit 2330" might have been a somewhat more alarming headline - I was kinda hoping to see tomorrow...

  5. In 877 years I will be dead by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    And thus I do not care.

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    1. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you have any regard for human life? Think about someone else besides yourself for a change, and imagine the scenario that these people 877 years from now will face. You are a very selfish individual.

    2. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by ramzak2k · · Score: 4, Funny

      yeah , besides if humans evolve as shown in hollywood, the women then will have three boobs and the mutant power to control the tsunami.

      --

      Siggy Say, Siggy Do
    3. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by petecarlson · · Score: 4, Funny

      I guess men will have to grow another hand...

    4. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by jinglecat · · Score: 1, Funny

      In 877 years from now, Strom Thurman *might* be dead.....

    5. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Snoopy77 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Two hands and a mouth ... we are ready for the three breasted women!

      --
      "She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
    6. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By then the robots will be in control. This meteor could be just the thing to take them out.

    7. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, we will likely be disembodied heads preserved in glass containers with some kind of life preserving fluid, possibly Slurm. Hopefully I'll be out delivering Popplers for Planet Express in some far corner of the universe at the time of impact. Hey, wait, but if we're just heads that means we have no ... forget it, I'd rather be dead.

    8. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by George+Wanker+Bush · · Score: 0

      That's exactly what I say to myself before making one of those important decisions, you know.

      --
      -- Let's go nucular!
    9. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have more empathy for the robots than I do for humans.

    10. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks to the miracles of Photoshop, three-breasted women (warning; work-unsafe link) are already among us.

    11. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, what you just described was Futurama. You might want to know that cartoons are not real.

    12. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Three boobs I can deal with. It's that future where aphrodite turns into hermaphrodite that bothers me.

    13. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by SEWilco · · Score: 1

      You might want to know that all communications through time look like cartoons. "The Simpsons" is the popular reality show from the year 3742.

    14. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah the mouth for those wonderful conversations women want after sex.
      I'd say, skip the extra hands and mouth, and go for the three breasts yourself, and we never need women again!

    15. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Enonu · · Score: 1

      MMM, Mmm, mmm. Baby, you make me wish I had THREE hands!

    16. Re:In 877 years I will be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not if they read /. regularly...

  6. Accuracy by JohnFluxx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    > Note that there is a 0.3% chance of impact during that encounter.

    Is that 0.3% chance mostly from the inaccuracy of the devices that measure the velocity of the object, inaccuracy of the prediction models, or genuine random events (like uh being affected by random solar wind variations, or something ).

    1. Re:Accuracy by tha_mink · · Score: 1

      Well, no one is going to be around to point out the inaccuracy so like....

      --
      You'll have that sometimes...
    2. Re:Accuracy by pVoid · · Score: 1
      It's probably due to the fact that they can only obtain a certain amount of precision in their measurements.

      When you think about it though, the precisions we're talking about must be just incredible.

    3. Re:Accuracy by f97tosc · · Score: 1

      Is that 0.3% chance mostly from the inaccuracy of the devices that measure the velocity of the object, inaccuracy of the prediction models

      Mostly measurement of exact position and velocity vectors.

      These percentage risks actually present a great communication problem for astronomers.

      Scientists are used to the notion of measuring accuracy. They thus understand that when you start measuring, it can be say a 10% chance, based on the limited data you have. Then you collect more data, and it is reduced to say 1%.

      For the common public, however, the updated numbers suggest that the scientists "were wrong" in the first place, and they lose credibility.

      This is one of the reasons for scientists being more reluctant to release early data on asteroid observations.

      Tor

    4. Re:Accuracy by twinkyminator · · Score: 0

      Probably random events.

      I'm quite sure they used a 8-ball to figure out if the giant-space-thingie is going to hit us or not.

    5. Re:Accuracy by A55M0NKEY · · Score: 1
      Wouldn't wildly inaccurate measurements tend to *decrease* the probability that an object would hit in general? I mean, if I say that based on my innacurate measurements that assteroid X will be 'somewhere in the solar system' on day Y, then what are the odds that the earth will occupy the same spot in the solar system on day Y as the asteroid?

      But with more accurate measurements, you constrain the assteroid to be in a smaller area. If you know the earth will be in that area on that day, then the odds of an impact is the size of the area you know the assteroid will be in divided by the size of the earth.

      However, if I know that the earth will be in an area E and the assteroid will be in an area A and the intersection of E and A is only a little slice of A then the odds are volumeof(A)/volumeof(AnE). Increasing the accuracy of measurements will shrink A, so if AnE is shrunk relative to A-E the odds of impact will decrease but if A-E is shrunk relative to AnE then the odds of impact increase.

      --

      Eat at Joe's.

    6. Re:Accuracy by f97tosc · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't wildly inaccurate measurements tend to *decrease* the probability that an object would hit in general? I mean, if I say that based on my innacurate measurements that assteroid X will be 'somewhere in the solar system' on day Y, then what are the odds that the earth will occupy the same spot in the solar system on day Y as the asteroid?

      Say you make enough observations to assess, based on all available data, that the probability of collision is 10%.

      After this two things can happen.

      1. There is a 10% chance that there really will be an impact. If this is true, then more and more observations will increase that assessed probability until it is obvious that there is a 100% risk.

      2 But in 90% of cases, additional observations will reveal a lower and lower impact probability, until we know for certain that it will miss.

      Since most observations concern low-probability events, you are right that additional observations usually leads to lower impact probability assessments. But one day it may be the other way around...

      Tor

    7. Re:Accuracy by JohnFluxx · · Score: 1

      > I'm quite sure they used a 8-ball to figure out if the giant-space-thingie is going to hit us or not.

      oh come on, it's more accurate than that. They probably use the 8-ball 100 times, and then average..

    8. Re:Accuracy by JohnFluxx · · Score: 1

      I was just thinking.

      If the 8-ball gives a yes/no answer, so a 50% chance of being right, and 50% chance of being wrong.

      So if you did it just 5 times, and then average, then that would give you a 1-(1-0.5)^5 = about 5% accuracy...

      hmm so that's why they did

  7. The name of the simulation program is... by ciurana · · Score: 1, Funny

    ...chicken_little.exe

    Cheers!

    E

    --
    http://eugeneciurana.com | http://ciurana.eu
    1. Re:The name of the simulation program is... by petecarlson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Is there a port for Linux?

    2. Re:The name of the simulation program is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even in 2880, I bet they'll be typing

      C:\progra~1\chicke~1\chickltl.exe

    3. Re:The name of the simulation program is... by zebs · · Score: 1

      chicken_little.exe

      Wasn't that chicken_lickin.exe?

      Chicken Licken

    4. Re:The name of the simulation program is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And nobody still uses Linux.

    5. Re:The name of the simulation program is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was Tea Leoni involved in the developpment of this program ?

  8. Hope... by iworm · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well given the human race's ingenuity, if in the next 800 hundred years or so we haven't worked out a way to prevent this, we probably deserve extinction for being idle.

    Maybe we could all spend a little less on improving ways to kill each other, and a little more on planning our survival?

    1. Re:Hope... by DrMrLordX · · Score: 2, Insightful

      By 2880, I would hope we would have some miner drones attached to that baby draining it of whatever valuable minerals it may have. At least then it won't be so massive when it hits Earth . . .

    2. Re:Hope... by C32 · · Score: 1

      Hell, i'd be suprised if mankind at it's present level couldn't bash something together in a couple of years if under pressure..
      Rocket science isn't rocket science anymore :)

    3. Re:Hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny
      Maybe we could all spend a little less on improving ways to kill each other, and a little more on planning our survival?

      Why can't we do both? Unless you think the hippies are going to be the ones to stop an asteroid...

    4. Re:Hope... by Buck2 · · Score: 1

      u r 2 31337 4 /.

      --

      As my father lik@(munch munch)... ....
    5. Re:Hope... by jkrise · · Score: 4, Insightful

      " if in the next 800 hundred years or so we haven't worked out a way to prevent this, we probably deserve extinction for being idle."

      I think you're being a bit harsh here. Is idleness the only reason for non-innovation? What about patents? Copyrights? How many years back did we 'invent' these things?
      What about money being wasted on 'defence systems' at the cost of innovative research? If World Peace were to be established Today, how much of the wrold's defence budgets could go into this kind of 'Save Humanity' work?
      What's the guaranty that more draconian acts than the DM?A could get passed, and stall research in vital areas? How many countries do research on even things like GPS? Peaceful nuclear reseacrh?

      Just consider this SCO-IBM imbroglio - how can an entity such as SCO even claim to own the brains of programmers and developers by paying up some cash. How much has DOS (the operating system) advanced over the past 10 years? How many viable alternatives to the X-Window environments have been developed?

      And meanwhile,
      How many locks, anti-competitive measures and worse tactics have been imposed on good innovative software? Even standards and protocols? I'm sorry, but blaming lack of innovation on mere idleness just doesn't cut it.

      As Evelyn Waugh famously said, we need to release generations from captivity, that may be more irksome than our own.

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    6. Re:Hope... by Hellkitten · · Score: 1

      Well given the human race's ingenuity, if in the next 800 hundred years or so we haven't worked out a way to prevent this, we probably deserve extinction for being idle.

      quoth the article:
      It takes 8 hours for the waves to reach Europe, where they come ashore at heights of about 30 to 50 feet.

      Doesn't realy sound like extinction to me, hardly enough to get our feet wet. For the us east cost they're talking 400 feet, how much ingenuity does it take to head for the hills?

      --
      - We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
    7. Re:Hope... by ites · · Score: 1
      The fact appears to be that for most people, most of the time, "survival" basically consists of competing with other people, and this often includes killing them, either directly through violence and war, or (much more significantly) through competition for food, water, space, and energy.

      If that does not ruin your day, consider that this is the way of all life as we know it: competition inside a species generally being much more aggressive than competition between species.

      It is very unlikely that we will have stopped this by the time the comet passes. Whatever our ecology, we will be fighting each other tooth and nail to be the ones getting to most out of it.

      On the positive side: evolution is basically the reproduction of those genes that stay at the top of the heap. From the genes' point of view, it all makes perfect sense.

      --
      Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
    8. Re:Hope... by haedesch · · Score: 1

      the resulting earthquakes are probably a much worse problem.
      Also, I guess a lot of water will evaporate, forming huge clouds and (just a guess), that will probably change climate for a short while...

    9. Re:Hope... by Brian_Ellenberger · · Score: 1

      What about money being wasted on 'defence systems' at the cost of innovative research? If World Peace were to be established Today, how much of the wrold's defence budgets could go into this kind of 'Save Humanity' work?

      See this Internet thing you are using. It started as a Defense Department project. War has long been a motivator for progress. Either progress or die, literally. Check out the history of aviation.

      Compare the NSF and DARPA. They both give money to people to perform scientific research. How many innovations has the NSF come up with? I've worked on both NSF and DARPA projects, and the DARPA projects were far more rigorous. There was stuff that I thought was crap "dog and pony show" stuff for the NSF that would never have pass DARPA. DARPA can take away your funding in a heartbeat and often does.

      I think World Peace would be the kind of event that causes us to stand idle for 800 years. If we evolved militarily for 800 years, shooting down an asteriod out in deep space would probably seem like a piece of cake.

      Brian Ellenberger

    10. Re:Hope... by kruithof · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't expect many earthquakes if it hits the middle of the ocean, since the water will absorb the shock. I'm not too sure that a lot of water will evaporate either, that is: significantly more than normally would evaporate on a sunny day. One of the effects of cloud forming will be that less water will evaporate due to the sun heating the water.

      Still, 30-50 ft waves are significant; just think of the damage this will do to the coastal cities, the low countries (belgium and the netherlands), and denmark. The same applies ofcourse to America (including the USA)
      It doesn't necessarily equate to total extinction of the human race, but it would change life quite drastically and immediately.

      I also suppose that the effects would be more serious if it hits a land-mass. (ofcourse I haven't RTFA).

      Andries

    11. Re:Hope... by ColaMan · · Score: 1

      maybe we could get GreenPeace out there to try and catch it ;-)

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
    12. Re:Hope... by zeigerpuppy · · Score: 1

      If only it were so simple - genes explaining everything
      Sorry, this argument has never really gelled with me.
      First of all, organisms are organised on multiple hierarchies... so the 'build up from the base' analogy fails when macro interacts with micro and micro interacts with macro directly.
      The genes for good looks won't get you more children unless they happen to coincide with the cultural notion of what good looks are, for example. So a 'good gene' is not always good!

      What's more, genes don't live in isolation even at the micro level, they interact with proteins and RNA and other molecules, energy fluxes and unexplained effects to yield coherent patterns of behaviour... organisation on multiple levels.

      So, the good news is that you are not a slave to your genes or anyone elses. It is the will to imagine the future that is the most potent evolutionary force....

      I, at least, have the will to resolve conflicts without resorting to mechanistic 'my genes made me do it' excuses.

    13. Re:Hope... by gpinzone · · Score: 1

      No, GreenPeace will try and prevent the spaceships from launching to protect the intersellar bacteria living on the meteor.

    14. Re:Hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      World Peace is a myth. As long as at least one person has the potential to create weapons, everybody else needs them too.

    15. Re:Hope... by SEWilco · · Score: 1

      The only way we'll survive is if we get our eggs out of this basket. We can't stay at the bottom of a single gravity well and expect to survive, no matter how green it is down here.

    16. Re:Hope... by NDPTAL85 · · Score: 1

      Your one of those folks who thinks the amount of money in a system is a limited amount, sort of like a pie which never shrinks or grows larger.

      If there was world peace, there wouldn't be any leftover defence funds to spend because they wouldn't have been collected in the first place. All of the inventions we've gotten from the act of War would have ceased to exist as well.

      I know Peace sounds cool and all, but a lot of research, good research, has been done by two different groups of people trying to figure out how to blow the other up in the biggest most spectacular ways.

      --
      Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
    17. Re:Hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we're draining the asteroid of stuff, we'll also launch the material from the asteroid in a direction which will push the asteroid to a safer path. And "may have" is not proper, as even the smallest asteroid has a huge amount of material available.

    18. Re:Hope... by ThaReetLad · · Score: 1

      Kang: Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons.

      Kodos: Kneel before my slingshot puny Earthling.

      --
      You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
    19. Re:Hope... by Kintanon · · Score: 1

      So we'll deserve to be destroyed due to stupidity instead of idleness... Whichever. If as a global society SOMEONE can figure out a solution given 800 years of lead time then we're doomed as a species anyways.

      Kintanon

      --
      Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
    20. Re:Hope... by FroMan · · Score: 1

      Or maybe we could spend a little more time improving ways to kill each and kill asteroids and comets.

      I don't think there is much of a difference except for scale.

      Everytime I hear one of you pansies complain that we should spend money here or spend moeny there instead of on weapons research or something of that nature I get sick.

      We do. Period. Not all our money goes to one area. Yes, a large amount goes to weapons research, and that keeps people alive now. What good does saving life 800 years in the future do us if some warlord comes in and destroys us? In a world where there is one potential bad guy with weapons, the rest are slaves to him. 10 years ago, do you think Saddam would have stopped at Kuwait? Should we have appeased him then? said we don't need weapons, cause hes a nice guy?

      In both Afghanistan and Iraq the wars were short because we were multiple generations of weapondry ahead of them. It saved lives.

      --
      Norris/Palin 2012
      Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
    21. Re:Hope... by Eccles · · Score: 1

      Your one of those folks who thinks the amount of money in a system is a limited amount, sort of like a pie which never shrinks or grows larger.

      There is a finite resource: people time. The more that is spent on figuring out better ways to blow things up, the less there is to spend on other research. And the more people on active duty, the fewer potential researchers there are.

      The question, though, is what those people would do without the military research with its spin-offs. Certainly there's plenty of non-military research, from the human genome project to the NIH, NSF, drug companies, et al. But the military emphasis has at times led to technological leaps (the jet engine, rockets, integrated circuits, etc.) that may not have come so quickly by the non-military approach.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
    22. Re:Hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the only push to innovation is to find better ways to kill each other, maybe we deserve to be hit by an asteroid now.

      Better five minutes from now, I got a sandwich to finish.

    23. Re:Hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nothing like simplifying something as complex as war, military force and world balance to the phrase "blowing things up" to make your argument simplistic and shortsighted by definition.

    24. Re:Hope... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We do. Period. Not all our money goes to one area. Yes, a large amount goes to weapons research, and that keeps people alive now.

      I agree but lets step back a few months.
      A person who was studying ways to deflect comets and/or astroids was killed on September 11,2001 quashing any hope of one day saving humanity. Or conversly
      A person who was studying ways to cure cancer and cure world hunger was killed in the bombing raid of Baghdad of April 17,2003.

      What does it matter? We could also use the paradoxial view that we are already doomed because Cain killed the only ancestor that could save us from ourselves or any other disaster that has happened or could be forseen.

  9. the movie seems to be slashdotted by ramzak2k · · Score: 1

    someone look at it and tell us if it is any different from the deep impact flick.

    --

    Siggy Say, Siggy Do
    1. Re:the movie seems to be slashdotted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this doesn't have such crappy sappy acting

  10. Article text, (impact with slashdot 1950DoS) by fireman+sam · · Score: 3, Funny

    May 27, 2003
    Contact: Tim Stephens (831) 459-2495; stephens@ucsc.edu

    Massive tsunami sweeps Atlantic Coast in asteroid impact scenario for March 16, 2880
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    We're all fscked

    --
    it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
    1. Re:Article text, (impact with slashdot 1950DoS) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How odd. I don't feel like a filesystem.

  11. in case anybody wants to read it here by CowBovNeal · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Massive tsunami sweeps Atlantic Coast in asteroid impact scenario for March 16, 2880
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    SANTA CRUZ, CA--If an asteroid crashes into the Earth, it is likely to splash down somewhere in the oceans that cover 70 percent of the planet's surface. Huge tsunami waves, spreading out from the impact site like the ripples from a rock tossed into a pond, would inundate heavily populated coastal areas. A computer simulation of an asteroid impact tsunami developed by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows waves as high as 400 feet sweeping onto the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

    The researchers based their simulation on a real asteroid known to be on course for a close encounter with Earth eight centuries from now. Steven Ward, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCSC, and Erik Asphaug, an associate professor of Earth sciences, report their findings in the June issue of the Geophysical Journal International.

    March 16, 2880, is the day the asteroid known as 1950 DA, a huge rock two-thirds of a mile in diameter, is due to swing so close to Earth it could slam into the Atlantic Ocean at 38,000 miles per hour. The probability of a direct hit is pretty small, but over the long timescales of Earth's history, asteroids this size and larger have periodically hammered the planet, sometimes with calamitous effects. The so-called K/T impact, for example, ended the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

    "From a geologic perspective, events like this have happened many times in the past. Asteroids the size of 1950 DA have probably struck the Earth about 600 times since the age of the dinosaurs," Ward said.

    Ward and Asphaug's study is part of a general effort to conduct a rational assessment of asteroid impact hazards. Asphaug, who organized a NASA-sponsored scientific workshop on asteroids last year, noted that asteroid risks are interesting because the probabilities are so small while the potential consequences are enormous. Furthermore, the laws of orbital mechanics make it possible for scientists to predict an impact if they are able to detect the asteroid in advance.

    "It's like knowing the exact time when Mount Shasta will erupt," Asphaug said. "The way to deal with any natural hazard is to improve our knowledge base, so we can turn the kind of human fear that gets played on in the movies into something that we have a handle on."

    Although the probability of an impact from 1950 DA is only about 0.3 percent, it is the only asteroid yet detected that scientists cannot entirely dismiss as a threat. A team of scientists led by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported on the probability of 1950 DA crossing paths with the Earth in the April 5, 2002, issue of the journal Science.

    "It's a low threat, actually a bit lower than the threat of being hit by an as-yet-undiscovered asteroid in the same size range over the same period of time, but it provided a good representative scenario for us to analyze," Asphaug said.

    For the simulation, the researchers chose an impact site consistent with the orientation of the Earth at the time of the predicted encounter: in the Atlantic Ocean about 360 miles from the U.S. coast. Ward summarized the results as follows:

    The 60,000-megaton blast of the impact vaporizes the asteroid and blows a cavity in the ocean 11 miles across and all the way down to the seafloor, which is about 3 miles deep at that point. The blast even excavates some of the seafloor. Water then rushes back in to fill the cavity, and a ring of waves spreads out in all directions. The impact creates tsunami waves of all frequencies and wavelengths, with a peak wavelength about the same as the diameter of the cavity. Because lower-frequency waves travel faster than waves with higher frequencies, the initial impulse spreads out into a series of waves.

    "In the movies they show one big wave, but you actually end up with dozens of waves. The first ones to arrive are pr

    --
    Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
  12. 90 Percent? by Unoriginal+Nick · · Score: 2, Funny
    A NASA-led campaign to detect large asteroids in near-Earth orbits is about half way toward its goal of detecting 90 percent of those larger than 1 kilometer in diameter (the size of 1950 DA) by 2008.

    "Until we detect all the big ones and can predict their orbits, we could be struck without warning," said Asphaug. "With the ongoing search campaigns, we'll probably be able to sound the 'all clear' by 2030 for 90 percent of the impacts that could trigger a global catastrophe."

    Um, why is the goal to only find 90 percent of the asteroids that can kill us? Shouldn't they be trying to find all of them?

    1. Re:90 Percent? by Catcher80 · · Score: 1

      "Um, why is the goal to only find 90 percent of the asteroids that can kill us? Shouldn't they be trying to find all of them?"

      It is probably possible that the smaller ones will break down upon entering the atmosphere. Also, if you can predict orbit patterns for 90% of asteroids, you can probably conclude any type of pattern for asteroids with the same properties (size).

      Besides, when the heck was the last time an asteroid hurt the planet anyway? really?

      --
      I sell out to The Man every day.
    2. Re:90 Percent? by xtal · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's 90% because more people work at your average burger king than are full time looking for potental asteroid hazards. Polticians don't care, neither do most people. Until, of course, something happens. Sadly, nothing short of a asteroid impact in the western world will change this. I just hope that it's not mistaken for an act of terrorism, triggering a nuclear holocaust. I also hope it's not so big as to trigger massive climate change.

      There is also the problem that we can only detect such objects at so-and-so a range, so earth needs to be in the right place at the right time for an event to be recorded.

      Also, comets count potentially disturb the orbits of many asteroids in the meantime. You can't ever predict a comet we haven't seen before - by the time we see it, it will likely be too late to do anything.

      Rosy, isn't it.

      --
      ..don't panic
    3. Re:90 Percent? by ramzak2k · · Score: 4, Informative

      Um, why is the goal to only find 90 percent of the asteroids that can kill us?

      Budget constraints. They can only do so much with what they could sqeeze out of the government.

      Seriously, it could be because of the unpredictability of the asteroids' path & other unknown asteroids. Although many of these follow well defined path - a smallest deviation resulting out of say, collision with other space debris, would mean large change from the expected point of contact at earth.

      --

      Siggy Say, Siggy Do
    4. Re:90 Percent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Since the replies so far are half-assed, here's the answer:

      Once you've reached 90%, 90% of the asteroids you "discover" you already know about, and only 10% are new. So finding new asteroids is now 10 times harder than before, and going from 90% to 99% (a 9% increase) is just as hard as finding the first 90%. Same problem going from 99.0% to 99.9%, etc.

    5. Re:90 Percent? by c.emmertfoster · · Score: 1

      Although that was probably meant rhetorically, it's a decent question... Tunguska, 1908? Anyone know of anything signifigant more recently?

      --
      We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
    6. Re:90 Percent? by RickHunter · · Score: 1

      90% is actually pretty good when you consider the problems involved. We're talking finding really small objects in a really big volume of space, and some of these things are hard to spot. Not only that, but once you spot one, you've got to work out where its going. And then you have to work out (or rather, estimate, as multiple-body gravity problems are very, very hard to solve) the changes that will be made to its orbit by assorted gravitational influences.

      Of course, the real question is what the margin of error will be for those computations.

    7. Re:90 Percent? by Theaetetus · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Sadly, nothing short of a asteroid impact in the western world will change this. I just hope that it's not mistaken for an act of terrorism, triggering a nuclear holocaust.

      Agreement with your other points but this one - huh? There's a big kablooie, it gets mistaken for a terrorist act, first reaction is to launch the nukes? Is that what we did on 9/11? Even if it was bigger, what's the point? How does one take out a terrorist by launching nukes at every country in the world? Serious overreaction there, and some massive FUD. You find the terrorist, hunt them down, and get them - you don't randomly start throwing missiles at other countries.

      -T

    8. Re:90 Percent? by Thing+1 · · Score: 1
      You find the terrorist, hunt them down, and get them - you don't randomly start throwing missiles at other countries.
      I just recently read an old Niven/Pournelle novel, Lucifer's Hammer -- and it had the scenario where a comet strikes the earth. It breaks up into multiple pieces, and does a ton of damage.

      One small plotline in the novel was that China and Russia went to war, and started throwing nukes at each other. Granted, this is a work of fiction...

      I highly recommend the book. Very good character development, especially the mailman and the senator (and the dude who discovers the comet before it hits). Not science fiction in the sense of lasers and spaceships; it's more of an "alternate present" story.

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    9. Re:90 Percent? by barakn · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Nothing that major has been observed since. There was a spectacular near miss, though. This object skipped off the atmosphere in Aug., 1972, starting over Utah and leaving the atmosphere over Alberta. I was a fetus when it passed over my parents' house.

      But if I were you, I'd be more worried about the small stuff.

      --
      "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
    10. Re:90 Percent? by Theaetetus · · Score: 1
      Great book, but IIRC (been a few years), China and Russia went to war over resource shortages, not because they thought the comet was a terrorist nuke attack... That's my point- no one would consider that to be what happened, as grandparent suggested.

      -T

    11. Re:90 Percent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Agreement with your other points but this one - huh? There's a big kablooie, it gets mistaken for a terrorist act, first reaction is to launch the nukes? Is that what we did on 9/11? Even if it was bigger, what's the point? How does one take out a terrorist by launching nukes at every country in the world? Serious overreaction there, and some massive FUD.

      not really. Consider what would happen if an asteroid hit Pakistan a few years ago when tensions between them and India were at their highest. FOr two countries at the brink of war, and event like this would push tem over the edge.

    12. Re:90 Percent? by hairyfarter · · Score: 1
      >You find the terrorist, hunt them down, and get them - you don't randomly start throwing missiles at other countries.

      hmm...like the US did with Iraq? They must've missed some terrorists who just blew up bombs in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

      Sadly, I can see the US randomly nuking other countries.

    13. Re:90 Percent? by fisman · · Score: 1

      You find the terrorist, hunt them down, and get them - you don't randomly start throwing missiles at other countries.

      Gee! That should have been rated FUNNY and not INFORMATIVE!

      Like you mean the US has not been randomly throwing missiles at Afghanistan, Iraq and who was next again? I think it was North Korea, Siria and then Pakistan? Didn't get the whole list though and I might have messed up the order a little, sorry.

      And oh yes, they did of course get both Bin Laden and Sadam as I recall, no wait something is wrong here ...

  13. 8 centuries from now... by Narphorium · · Score: 1

    I can see it now. Eight centuries from now they'll be saying: "Gee, that astroid thing is coming up soon. Where did I put that computer simulation from the 21st century?" I mean seriously will computers even be around that far into the future?

    1. Re:8 centuries from now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No problem. The actual web page will have long since died of bit rot, but a copy of it will be in the Google Cache.

      As far as finding it goes: the descendants of the current Slashdot editors will re-post this story several times a year for the next 800 years, to keep the memory alive.

    2. Re:8 centuries from now... by Vollernurd · · Score: 1

      Yes, and they'll probably be using Itanium for the first time.

      --
      Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
    3. Re:8 centuries from now... by martyn+s · · Score: 1

      No, they're gonna give up computers in favor of abacuses...

      I mean seriously, why would they just get rid of computers? We still have wheels, don't we? It's a 7,000 year old invention. Somehow, I think we'll have computers forever and ever, in some form or another.

    4. Re:8 centuries from now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They'll be referring to movies like "Armaggedon" and "Deep Impact" as contingency plans.

    5. Re:8 centuries from now... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. They'll say:

      "Shit, we never saw it coming!"

  14. I doubt they will speak English 800 years from now by ObviousGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

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    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
  15. Yeah, sure... by canning · · Score: 2, Funny

    Who wants to bet it doesn't turn out like they predict? I'll bet my house on it.

    --
    I love the smell of Karma in the morning
    1. Re:Yeah, sure... by Buzz_Litebeer · · Score: 1

      Words of slashdot decendant to your decendant.

      "Hey your great *times a lot* grandad said he bet his house, so that means ALL yOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US"

      of course my humour filter is pretty weak right now so thats probably not funny in the least

      --
      If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
    2. Re:Yeah, sure... by AppyPappy · · Score: 1

      If it does, one of my neighbor's GGGGGGGGGGGkids will be sitting on the front porch on that same damn sofa saying "Shit, Sissy, that was a big'un. I shore am glad I got this big ole piece of sheet truck my GGGGGGGGGGGGGdaddy left me cause when that thar wave hits, I'll be able to drive to the 7-11 and git beer". The only thing that will change is the dogs.

      --

      If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem

    3. Re:Yeah, sure... by Theaetetus · · Score: 1
      Who wants to bet it doesn't turn out like they predict? I'll bet my house on it.

      Sure, I'll take that bet... If it doesn't turn out like they say it will and everything is fine, I get your house. If it does, however, you can keep your pile of soaked tinder. ;)

      -T

  16. What happens if? by jkrise · · Score: 2, Funny

    "In the event that it impacts in the Atlantic, they predict that the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast."

    Wondering what'd happen if it hit anywhere near Seattle!? heh... forgot, it's gonna be more than 700 years away. Can we have a simulation of that thing in Seattle right now? In a place which rhymes with Deadbund?

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    1. Re:What happens if? by The+Original+Yama · · Score: 1

      "In the event that it impacts in the Atlantic, they predict that the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast."

      Isn't Europe and Africa on the east coast of the Atlantic?

    2. Re:What happens if? by styrotech · · Score: 1


      Isn't Europe and Africa on the east coast of the Atlantic?


      heh

      Anyway, an anal pendant would probably say only land has a coast while the sea has a shore - or something (I'm not sure myself - no pun intended)

    3. Re:What happens if? by styrotech · · Score: 1, Funny

      Doh, freudian typo there. I'm not sure what an anal pendant is (a Klingon maybe?), but it sounds gross!

    4. Re:What happens if? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Why are people from the USA so damn self-centred?

  17. Lucifers Hammer? by Buzz_Litebeer · · Score: 1

    It is a book by Niven and Pourelle(sp?), and it details such an event. The characters in the book thought it had a 1000 to 1 chance of missing too, but they were horribly wrong.

    3 percent is pretty high considering its the extinction of a sentient race (humans) possible, or at least civilization.

    I can just see my genetic decendants going "shit I wish my great *9 or 10 grandfathers generation had taken a little time out of their primitive lives to think about some kind of solution to this..." just before they get the big bam that causes 400 foot ocean swells to kill them in whatever the US is called at that time.

    But who knows, end of civilization might not be so bad, but hey whats the percent chance of only that happening if it hits?

    --
    If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
    1. Re:Lucifers Hammer? by ObviousGuy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just because there is a 3 in 1000 chance of a strike and a strike actually occurs, it does not mean that the initial odds were wrong.

      --
      I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
    2. Re:Lucifers Hammer? by inaeldi · · Score: 1
      shit I wish my great *9 or 10 grandfathers generation had taken a little time out of their primitive lives to think about some kind of solution to this

      Figures, blame your elders. It's not like they could do anything about it a hundred years from now or so, right?

    3. Re:Lucifers Hammer? by Wavicle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The characters in the book thought it had a 1000 to 1 chance of missing too, but they were horribly wrong.

      Imagine how boring the book would have been if they were right!

      Interestingly Lucifer's Hammer has become practically required reading for the "survivalist" movement (people who believe in being prepared for a catastrophic destruction of civilization... they got a little too closely associated with the Y2K nuts a couple years back, but for the most part they are fairly level-headed).

      But Lucifer's Hammer is a good read. I think it's filed under SciFi, but it is pretty light on the Science Fiction.

      --
      Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
      Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
    4. Re:Lucifers Hammer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What, you mean global warming? No we are generally too vapid to think far ahead.

    5. Re:Lucifers Hammer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is this new math you are using? How does 0.3% turn into 3%?

  18. graphics by UniverseIsADoughnut · · Score: 3, Funny

    Anyone else looking for the classic CNN artist rendition of an astoroid impact that looks like the moon hitting the earth to go with this story?

    1. Re:graphics by Hadlock · · Score: 1

      i think that's BBC

      --
      moox. for a new generation.
    2. Re:graphics by Anonymous+Squonk · · Score: 1

      What are the odds of this asteroid slamming in the moon, and thus driving the moon into the earth?

    3. Re:graphics by Muhammar · · Score: 1

      The real asteroid will have sign on the back: HOW IS MY SPEED? CALL 1-800-EXTINCT

      [i have stolen this one]

      --
      I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
    4. Re:graphics by deathcow · · Score: 1

      1 in 3 according to my wrist computer

    5. Re:graphics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
      What are the odds of this asteroid slamming in the moon, and thus driving the moon into earth?

      Depends on who's behind the cue... In fact, a professional player should be able to get the spin right so that the moon makes a soft landing on the Asian land mass... The only question is, where are we going to find a player of astronomical proportions?

    6. Re:graphics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      This sign would be on it too: "If you can read this, you're about to die."

    7. Re:graphics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The only question is, where are we going to find a player of astronomical proportions?

      Right here
    8. Re:graphics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "Yao!"

  19. (OSQ) Nah it'll miss us easy by toddhunter · · Score: 1, Funny

    And if I'm wrong, may we all be horribly crushed from above somehow

  20. Our great^12 grandchildren are going to look back by tlambert · · Score: 5, Funny

    Our great^12 grandchildren are going to look back on news stories like this one and *laugh their feelers off*...

    -- Terry

  21. 400 foot waves by Catcher80 · · Score: 1

    "...create 400 foot waves along the east coast."

    Guess we better start in on building 401 foot sea-walls! Made out of Adamantium..

    --
    I sell out to The Man every day.
    1. Re:400 foot waves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forget the seawalls. Time to pull out the surfboards.

  22. Whew... by doru · · Score: 1
    At a first look I thought it was 2088 !

    I am relieved.

    1. Re:Whew... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was 2088, the 2nd digit was a typo. :)

  23. Re:Our great^12 grandchildren... by Catcher80 · · Score: 1

    LOL

    --
    I sell out to The Man every day.
  24. I have also run a simulation of this by teamhasnoi · · Score: 4, Funny
    Tens of thousand dead, thousands drowned, babies killed and maimed.

    Homes destroyed, their leader missing, pandemonium falling into utter madness.

    Roads crumbled, storehouses plundered, the sky is literally falling.

    You can really mess up an anthill when you're 10 years old.

    1. Re:I have also run a simulation of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot a nut floating around in a barge with a pair of each animal...

    2. Re:I have also run a simulation of this by imaginate · · Score: 1

      Sounds pretty much like Bush's idea of what today should be like.

      Flamebait, I know...

  25. Who cares by Timesprout · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    We have wrecked the earth by then and will all be living on other planets in the solar system. Set your tivo's now cos presumably they will televise it.

    --
    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
    1. Re:Who cares by richie2000 · · Score: 1

      The end of the world will not be televised.

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
    2. Re:Who cares by Kiffer · · Score: 1
      The end of the world will not be televised. /BLOCKQUOTE

      Why not? every thing is shown on TV live any way ... it all depends on what form the end takes ... unless it destoyes everything instantly then people further away from the source we'l watch it on tv ...
      ***Live*** the Thrid seal has just opened and ... oh oh lost another camera ... switch to cam 3 ....
    3. Re:Who cares by richie2000 · · Score: 1
      Why not?

      Because.

      --
      Money for nothing, pix for free
    4. Re:Who cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It will be televised, but the ratings will be terrible and it won't be repeated.

  26. By 2880 by djupedal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...this UCSC computer simulation will be as high tech as a 2880 refrigerator magnet.

    You guys really sure you want to put this out there? They are gonna LTAO...

    1. Re:By 2880 by Soko · · Score: 1

      ..this UCSC computer simulation will be as high tech as a 2880 refrigerator magnet.

      However, they'll both do the exact same thing when they discover such an object approaching the earth:

      "Yo, human. Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye."

      Soko

      --
      "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
    2. Re:By 2880 by fatboyslack · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They are gonna LTAO...
      I wonder if they'll have @$$es in 2880?
      Antennas? Appendages?

      Laugh their Antennas off?

      Still, I digress. Its pretty wacky to think what things will be like in 877 years. I mean, look at what has happened since
      *gets out calculator, 'cause its late and I'm tired*
      the year of our Lord 1126? The most sophisticated weapon was the longbow, and the french actually use to put up a fight. The Church reigned supreme etc. So much has changed, and todays world would seem bonkers to folk from back then. Hmm, reading this back, I must be tired. Its all so damn obvious.

      --
      Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. -- Leo Tolstoy
    3. Re:By 2880 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if they'll outgrow trying to mask "ass" by typing "@$$" by then.

    4. Re:By 2880 by FunkSoulBrother · · Score: 1

      I wonder if they'll have @$$es in 2880?
      Antennas? Appendages?

      Laugh their Antennas off?

      Still, I digress. Its pretty wacky to think what things will be like in 877 years. I mean, look at what has happened since
      *gets out calculator, 'cause its late and I'm tired*
      the year of our Lord 1126? The most sophisticated weapon was the longbow, and the french actually use to put up a fight. The Church reigned supreme etc. So much has changed, and todays world would seem bonkers to folk from back then. Hmm, reading this back, I must be tired. Its all so damn obvious.


      But they still had 2 legs, 2 hands, 1 ass, and no antennae in 1126.

      And they still will in 2880.

      Evolution does not work that quickly, especially in populations the size of humans. The world will be different, but we will be the same. (maybe a few inches taller still due to better nourishment).

    5. Re:By 2880 by humming · · Score: 1

      Evolution does not work that quickly, especially in populations the size of humans. The world will be different, but we will be the same. (maybe a few inches taller still due to better nourishment).

      Although I slept through my bio-classes, I think I remember things like nourishment counted as part of the environment and not something that would affect your genes, thus not part of evolution.

      --
      I'm too stupid to preview.
    6. Re:By 2880 by c.emmertfoster · · Score: 1

      Certainly not evolution by natural means... however with the growing trend in body-modification and the rapid developments in eugenics, it doesn't really seem that far fetched that SOME physical changes by design would be within the realm of possibility.

      Tails, fancy eye-balls, enormous genitalia, you name it, I would buy it, were it available for my children...

      --
      We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
    7. Re:By 2880 by LMCBoy · · Score: 1

      The point is not to be worried about this *particular* rock, it's to be worried about rocks of this class that are out there on Earth-crossing orbits, that we don't even know about yet. One of them could hit tomorrow.

      Not that I am suggesting Impact insurance or anything, because the probability is obviously infinitesimal. Still, it does happen. It will happen again. It's just a question of when. Probably not in our lifetimes. Probably. Heh.

      --
      Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
    8. Re:By 2880 by Planesdragon · · Score: 1

      Still, I digress. Its pretty wacky to think what things will be like in 877 years. I mean, look at what has happened since
      *gets out calculator, 'cause its late and I'm tired*
      the year of our Lord 1126? The most sophisticated weapon was the longbow, and the french actually use to put up a fight. The Church reigned supreme etc. So much has changed, and todays world would seem bonkers to folk from back then. Hmm, reading this back, I must be tired. Its all so damn obvious.


      Actually, not a heck of a lot has happened. A few empires fell, a few empires rose, the language adapted...

      But the changes wrought in the last 800 years, technology aside, are nothing compared to the changes of the 800 years before that--or the 800 years before THAT.

      The pace of change is slowing down, on a social, linquistic, and cultural level, mostly thanks to our improved technology.

      I fully expect English to be, if not dominant, a viable and recognizable language in 800 years. Maybe mixed a bit with Chinesse, but still a recognizable language.

    9. Re:By 2880 by Theaetetus · · Score: 1
      Tails, fancy eye-balls, enormous genitalia, you name it, I would buy it, were it available for my children...

      Well, this is available now - so go get it for your kids! ;)

      -T

    10. Re:By 2880 by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      Evolution does not work that quickly, especially in populations the size of humans.

      Evolution is no longer a factor in human development. Within the century we'll be able to change our bodies in all sorts of interesting ways, and will too. As with all technological developments, the religious freaks and luddites will have a cow about it, but we'll ignore them just as we ignore the Amish today (other than to say "how quaint!" and snap a few photos).

      Four arms, larger brains, and, of course, all those idiot boys getting 12-inch penises only to find that anything beyond 8 is something most women don't want to get anywhere near...finally, real penis enlargement, the end result being that the 'enlarged' will never get a chance to breed....

      I take that back. Perhaps evolution is a factor, it's just working through *us* now. It would certainly explain frat houses....

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
    11. Re:By 2880 by outsider007 · · Score: 1

      ...only to find that anything beyond 8 is something most women don't want to get anywhere near...
      you just keep telling yourself that, buddy.
      if it makes you feel better.

      --
      If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
    12. Re:By 2880 by maxpublic · · Score: 1

      Ah, another satisfied RealDoll customer!

      Max

      --
      My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
  27. Re:I doubt they will speak English 800 years from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    A hUgE r0ck tWo-tHiRdS 0F @ MiL3 in DiAmEtEr

    I see you're confident the USA won't have switched to metric by then.

  28. Re:I doubt they will speak English 800 years from by jkrise · · Score: 1

    But they'd be reading Slashdot even then? You're either being too optimistic or over-confident. Maybe both!

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  29. Yep by The+Bungi · · Score: 0
    And Slashdot will post the story twice, generating its last dupe before the waves hit, the nuclear winter sets in and civilization ends.

    General Burrito, the site's cyborg manager, will draw his last Neodimium gas breath listening to audio emails from Neptune yelling "DUPE!!! U R TEH SUX!!!".

    1. Re:Yep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      ...the nuclear winter sets in...

      ...the nucular winter sets in...

  30. The book of horrible questions by rock_climbing_guy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There is a question in this funny volume that addresses this subject. I don't have the book at hand, but it goes like this: If you had the choice, and no one could ever know that you had the choice, would you allow the United States to sink into the ocean 500 years after your death in exchange for an ATM card that can remove money from any ATM without taking money from your account.

    Don't even think about it, you fscking Canadians.

    --
    Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
    1. Re:The book of horrible questions by jalet · · Score: 1

      No problem ! Where should I sign ? :-)

      --
      Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
    2. Re:The book of horrible questions by azzy · · Score: 0

      Terrorist!!!!

    3. Re:The book of horrible questions by ColaMan · · Score: 1

      Of course I'd take it, I'd just make sure that in my will it says something like:
      "Oh yeah, everyone, you know, er, it might be a good idea to like, be elsewhere than the US in 500 years time. I've left $500M in a high interest account to help defray moving costs. Thanks for that ATM card!"

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
    4. Re:The book of horrible questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, then things like mountain lions and buffalo would go extinct... but otherwise, yeah why the hell not.

    5. Re:The book of horrible questions by Alsee · · Score: 1

      United States to sink into the ocean...
      Don't even think about it, you fscking Canadians.


      But just imagine all that wonderful new BEACH FRONT PROPERTY on the southern border of Canada!!! :D

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    6. Re:The book of horrible questions by Acidangl · · Score: 1

      Does the ATM card come with a $400 daily withdrawl limit?

      --
      I'm a cucumber
    7. Re:The book of horrible questions by mikeage · · Score: 2, Funny

      There was a Twilight Zone episode that was similar. Basically:

      Satan (or your local bad dude) says to someone, here, you can have a million dollars if you push this button, which will kill someone, but don't worry, you don't know them.

      So, after much discussion, they do it, and then he takes back the devices, and says he's off to give it to someone else... someone they don't know.

      --
      -- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
    8. Re:The book of horrible questions by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1
      would you allow the United States to sink into the ocean 500 years after your death in exchange for an ATM card that can remove money from any ATM without taking money from your account.

      As long as it does not affect the ATM card, the U.S. can sink into the ocean right now! Is this a trick question?

    9. Re:The book of horrible questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But then who would the rest of the world have to blame things on (besides france).

    10. Re:The book of horrible questions by cellocgw · · Score: 1
      There is a question in this funny volume that addresses this subject. I don't have the book at hand, but it goes like this: If you had the choice, and no one could ever know that you had the choice, would you allow the United States to sink into the ocean 500 years after your death in exchange for an ATM card that can remove money from any ATM without taking money from your account.


      You left out ".... and an ironclad guarantee of no retribution, prosecution, or ostracism..."
      In which case why not withdraw enough money to live well AND start building a giant dome over the USA to protect it once it starts to sink.

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    11. Re:The book of horrible questions by sootman · · Score: 1

      Sounds good, but... what exactly does a dome *over* the US do for the country when it *sinks*? (presumably downward.)

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
    12. Re:The book of horrible questions by Bombcar · · Score: 1

      Keep out the water.

      Atlantis here we come!

    13. Re:The book of horrible questions by BarryJacobsen · · Score: 1

      I don't know of that episode, but I remember a short story where the same thing happened except it was phrased "It will kill someone that doesn't know you."
      The person did, and the button killed their spouse claiming that their spouse really didn't know them if they were willing to push the button.

  31. There is some relief though by evil9000 · · Score: 1

    I'm glad i wont be living in Atlanta in the year 2880 - that one looks deadly.

    1. Re:There is some relief though by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mankind will survive, Busted say so - we'll all be living underwater in 3000... apparently...

    2. Re:There is some relief though by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Atlanta is one of the higher elevation cities in the US
      2. The article said it would only go 12 miles in from the coast

      So, I think we will be OK.

  32. comet strikes earth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Wasn't this one of the disater options in SimEarth? And it's so much easier, quicker, and cheaper to model it in SimEarth than those other computers...

  33. Asteroids: liberal myth by GoatPigSheep · · Score: 2, Funny

    I find it funny how people talk about these so called "asteroids" that might strike earth and cause massive destruction. The idea of "giant rocks flying around in space" is almost impossible the fathom to any educated christian scientist. I believe these "asteroids" are just liberal propaganda.

    First of all, many people claim asteroids are what killed dinosaurs millions of years ago. This is impossible. God created in the earth in 6 days, not millions. It is entirely possible to assume then that dinosaurs and humans roamed the planet at the same time. At the time of the great flood (caused by God, not an asteroid!) the dinosaurs were too big to fit in the arc and that is why there are none today.

    Any educated right-wing christian knows that God is the only one who will cause massive destruction to earth, not a "floating ball of rock from outer space". There is no way to predict God's actions, we must simply have faith and follow his word. No tsunami will sweep away the faithful.

    Asteroids are simply the liberals way of trying to disprove God and attack the believes of educated right-wing christians! Do not accept this misinformation!

    --
    GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
    1. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by Narphorium · · Score: 1

      LOL, somehow I don't think that an ark (regardless of the size) will get you out of this one.

    2. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by eeyoredragon · · Score: 1

      *wonders if this is subtly executed satire or the ramblings of a madman* the world may never know ;)

    3. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by BrainInAJar · · Score: 1

      It's satire. Probably stolen from E2. Check out these other examples:
      Dangerous chemicals: absurd liberal myth and my favorite: The "Moon": A Ridiculous Liberal Myth

    4. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop spreading superstition. Religion is irrational baggage. Teach logic and understanding. Knock down the schools; build more libraries or general places of study. TAX THE CHURCHES. We must seek out and bring light upon ignorance. It's sbout time. Eye spy another dark age. P.S. asteroids4life! :/

    5. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by VanillaCoke420 · · Score: 1, Troll
      The Bible was written by many people throughout hundreds of years. These people were not perfect, they were not divine, they were people. Sometimes, they were people who saw talking burning bushes and angels and whatnot. Where is god today? Where are the angels? If someone would claim he is talking to god, not many people would believe him. They would, however, be ready to believe a really old book about people talking to god.

      The problem is that religious people don't seem to know why they are religious and why that specific religion. Why islam? Why christianity? In most cases, I would suppose, it has to do with their upbringing. They were told certain "truths" and eventually it becomes the Truth. Why do they believe the creation myth? What makes THAT story so much more likely than any other creation myths, for example? After all, none of them were based on any observations.

    6. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Answering to you and all your replys:
      A usefull url to anyone looking for the truth(yes anyone):
      http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11 /86/dawkin s2.html

      To those triying to pass god as coming from science:
      http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11 /86/rmind1 .html

      Finally, muslins, jews and cristians all share the same roots, the first chapters of the bible are the same in the 3 religion, nonetheless, that doensnt stop them from treating each other as shit. (nowadays, fundamentalist jews are the worst nazis on face of the earth, sorry, but i had to say that)

      Z

    7. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Truth != Troll. I think someone was insulted.

    8. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by SEWilco · · Score: 1

      LOL, somehow I don't think that an ark (regardless of the size) will get you out of this one. It depends whether the ark's orbit intersects the path of the asteroid.

    9. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by ThaReetLad · · Score: 1

      All religious books were written from stories passed down through the ages. Just how was an illiterate shepherd in Israel supposed to pass on the concept of string theory to his children, or indeed God to people who had only recently worked out how to farm? The whole lot was made up to make sense of the world as it appears, which is why religion has always tended to fill in the gaps around knowledge. The trick is to get religion to still be relevant while accepting new scientific fact. Interestingly though I suspect that in general physicists tend to have a higher than average probability of being open to the possibility of there being a God of some kind. Indeed most of the cosmology textbooks I've read tend to finish with a "Does this prove or disprove the existence of God" chapter. Perhaps it comes from wondering just how the universe is the way it is. On the other hand, I think biologists and geneticist tend to be less inclined to believe in God, because that would tend to imply the existence of the immortal human soul, which goes against the concept of life as a function of a mechanistic system.

      --
      You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
    10. Re:Asteroids: liberal myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if you have ever heard of the old "experiment" where one person would say one thing to another and they would further pass it(whatever they heard) down to another you would find out that even the simplest things get inflated when spoken communications are involved.

      Hell if the i-net was a spoken form of communication then mankind could have built not 1 ark but maybe 45 or even 50 arks that could be mankind's salvation.

      As the bible was written BY fallable humans why are we even talking that this however many pages book is "truly" the word of god.

  34. One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by rock_climbing_guy · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Everyone's talking about an asteroid slamming into the Atlantic Ocean. It's 2 AM and I honestly am not going to RTFA before I crash tonight, but it seems strange that they always consider the idea of the asteroid slamming directly into the surface.

    There are many distinct ways that the asteroid could hit. I imagine that after you determine if, when, and where it impacts the Earth, the next most important thing to know to weigh the consequences would be at what angle and trajectory it hits at. I imagine it would be quite different if it hit at a 1/16 * Pi angle and streaked across the sea than it would be if it hit orthogonal ( right angle ) to the surface.

    Also, I imagine the rotation of the asteroid could be a major factor, as well as its shape and composition.

    --
    Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
    1. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by product+byproduct · · Score: 4, Informative

      energy = (hit) ? 0.5*m*v*v : 0;

      Whether the asteroid hits or not will determine whether 0.5*m*v^2 joules of energy will be unleashed or not. Observe that angle or shape or composition don't enter the equation (and rotational energy is quite insignificant in comparison). The only parameters are the boolean value "hit", total mass, and velocity.

      What you're talking about are secondary details on "how" the energy will be transferred, but regardless the total amount will be the same.

    2. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by batura · · Score: 1

      You're absolutely correct. If you remember the Siberian asteriod impact 100 years ago, it actually came in at an angle (as indicated by tree burn patters) and caused a lot more damage that way.

      This particular event, which was compared to a multi-megaton nuclear weapon was actually pretty lightweight. The actual asteriod/meteorite never hit the ground intact, it disintegrated in the atmosphere. Now image how much damage would have been caused if it was large enough to remain intact!

    3. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by kinnell · · Score: 1

      This brings to mind an interesting question - if the angle at which it hits the water is shallow enough, will it bounce off like a skimming stone?

      --
      If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
    4. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by psavo · · Score: 1

      bullshit.
      Atmosphere is quite a bit large target, so if it skims through atmosphere, changes direction, and very probably break into parts, then not all the same energy will hit the target in the way orthogonal slam would do.

      --
      fucktard is a tenderhearted description
    5. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you think the moon got there?

    6. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by Detritus · · Score: 1

      With large objects, the presence of the Earth's atmosphere is irrelevant. It causes some minor heating on the surface of the object. It doesn't slow it down or deflect it by an appreciable amount. Try running a car into a brick wall at 200 kph. Now put a thin layer of foam rubber on the brick wall and repeat the test, see any difference?

      --
      Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
    7. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Asteroid's kinetic energy is 0.5*m*v*v, as you say. You can't assume that all of it will be converted into wave+heat+whatever in the same way, though. An asteroid skimming the atmosphere would carry on having dumped very little energy into it. Skimming the sea would release the energy over a relatively wide area, producing comparatively long, low waves. And a vertical-ish impact would produce the effects they've simulated. The angle of impact is important.

    8. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and what about changing the orbit of the earth around the sun? a minor change would affect the climate so hard that it can become completely unhabitable.
      anyone has thouhgts/calcs about that?
      Z

    9. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by tnak · · Score: 1

      hmmm. It's been many years since I took freshman physics and studied vectors but I think you're wrong.

      And, yes, gravity is going to enter into it as well, but it's still "just" another vector.

      What happens if it hits at a low enough angle that it skipped back into space? Don't know if that's possible, but I would think it theoretically possible.

      What about a "near miss" that scraped the atmosphere? What would that do to weather etc? For that matter, would it take any of the atmosphere with it and how much?

    10. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by jafiwam · · Score: 1

      Skipping is possible, and has even been filmed.

      The event was in Wyoming (USA) over the Grand Tetons in summer of 1972, some home-movie using vacationers filmed it. An asteroid (they think) skipped off the atmosphere, the section of film I saw had the object heading upwards, though it is hard to tell if it was on the way out or not.

      I Googled for it, but could not find much in the way of specific references or a still image.

    11. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by ThaReetLad · · Score: 1

      it's too small to have any effect.

      --
      You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
    12. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by Alsee · · Score: 1

      What happens if it hits at a low enough angle that it skipped back into space? Don't know if that's possible

      An asteroid at 38,000 MPH might "skip" off the atmosphere like a bullet might "skip" off your eyebrows :) In other words it would pretty much go straight through.

      The radius of the earth is 3963 miles. 90% of the atmosphere is within 10 miles of the surface, so lets use that as the that as the depth of the atmosphere. That puts the atmosphere limit at a 3973 mile radius. The probability of where it would hit are based on relative areas: 3963^2 / 3973^2. That yeilds 99.5% chance of a ground hit vs a 0.5% chance of it passing through the atmosphere.

      Gravity would tend to pull the asteroid down and the atmosphere would tend to push it up, but at 38,000 miles per hour both effects will be negligible. The two effects would also tend to cancel each other.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    13. Re:One things that I haven't seen addressed ... by hummassa · · Score: 1

      One of the hazards if you try to suicide by shooting yourself in your ear is that if the gun goes "up" during the shot, the bullet can slip by your head. A lot of pain and no death.

      --
      It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
  35. Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by malia8888 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From the article: Although the probability of an impact from 1950 DA is only about 0.3 percent, it is the only asteroid yet detected that scientists cannot entirely dismiss as a threat.

    IMHO mankind has more to fear from viruses than tsunamis generated from wandering asteroids. I am afraid that something very tiny will wipe us out, not someting very big.

    I am not a biologist, but I bet the threat is more than 0.3 percent that this could happen. This SARS outbreak has me thinking.

    --
    Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
    1. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by Graymalkin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We do indeed have a bit to fear from deadly viruses but the probability a virus is going to wipe our species out is probably somewhere around an asteroid impact wiping us out. Of all the bajillions of viruses only a fraction kill us with impunity and as our understanding of them increases their ability to kill us diminishes. This is not to say we're technologically immune to disease, we just understand the process a bit better now than we have.

      --
      I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
    2. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      IMHO mankind has more to fear from viruses than tsunamis generated from wandering asteroids. I am afraid that something very tiny will wipe us out, not someting very big.

      You can avoid viruses by locking yourself away from them. Good luck trying to dodge an asteroid.

    3. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by Captain+Large+Face · · Score: 1

      Funny, the threat of HIV/AIDS seems a lot more worrying than SARS. People have recovered from SARS, how many people have recovered from AIDS? Can SARS be passed on?

    4. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by finkployd · · Score: 1

      You can choose not to get HIV/AIDS reletivly easily (avoid dirty needles, unprotected sex), but SARS can be spread to you regardless of your actions.

      This discounts the rare possibility of a tainted blood transfusion, but let's face facts here, HIV is primarily sexually transmitted. SARS is trasmitted simply by contact.

      Finkployd

    5. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "Can SARS be passed on?"

      You can be safe in assuming that much. Besides, it wouldn't be much of an epidemicif it couldn't. The other diseases would laugh at him. 'Look at SARS, he can't spread himself!' and they would bully him in school, and tease him. And the other inept diseases would tell him 'Don't mind them. They're just jealous cause they're constantly killed off with antibiotics.' And one day, SARS would give back at his bullies. The class is going on a field trip and SARS will, by fiddling with the breaks on the bus, turn them all into statistics.

    6. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by JCholewa · · Score: 1

      > I am not a biologist, but I bet the threat is more than 0.3 percent
      > that this could happen. This SARS outbreak has me thinking.

      I agree with your suspicions, but SARS is a bad example to use. It's not *that* hyper-communicable, and it's not very deadly (I don't know the kill rate, as it's still in contention, but it seems to be as low as one out of twenty people, much less if you discount the elderly).

      A much more interesting example would be the disease from the Showtime channel's program, "Jeremiah". It wiped out nearly every human who'd already hit puberty. And, yay, the government made it. *_*

      --
      -JC

    7. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Any disease which is 100% fatal in a short period...will have its victims die before the disease can spread far. It is self-limiting.

      Any disease which is less than 100% fatal or whose victims live longer than 9 months is not enough to make us extinct. Particularly as we're not dodos stuck on one island. Well, except island Earth.

    8. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by NecrosisLabs · · Score: 1
      I agree with your suspicions, but SARS is a bad example to use. It's not *that* hyper-communicable, and it's not very deadly (I don't know the kill rate, as it's still in contention, but it seems to be as low as one out of twenty people, much less if you discount the elderly).
      SARS appears to have a 5-10% mortality rate, with modern medicine. The Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918 had a 2% mortality rate, and it was devistating. Don't discount it.
    9. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by Kintanon · · Score: 1

      More importantly, there's a fucking LOT of us.
      You don't kill 6.3 billion people overnight with a disease. And some significant percentage will be immune to it simply due to random genetics. Even if that's only 2-3% that's still a hell of a lot of people to start rebuilding. Our culture and society may be in danger from some massive disease outbreak, but our species isn't.

      Kintanon

      --
      Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
    10. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by cens0r · · Score: 1

      some source put SARS as low as 3% and the Spanish Flu as high as 6% or 7%, so they may be very similar. Do remeber though that the Spanish Flu was much more contageous than SARS. I believe 1 in 2 people actually became infected with the Flu.

      --
      Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
    11. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by Captain+Large+Face · · Score: 1

      OK, so HIV can be avoided by taking appropriate precautions, and if you catch it by not using your common sense, then you have no-one else to blame. However, it remains that HIV is still spreading like wild fire, and there is no known cure (AFAIK). Personally, HIV concerns me more than SARS, but that's just me...

    12. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by RodgerDodger · · Score: 1

      Besides, viruses are seldom 100% effective. Even a 99.99% fatal virus, that everyone on Earth catches, will still leave 0.01% of the population alive. That's still over 600,000 people; enough to continue the species. Sure, civilisation will fall apart for a while, but that's nothing new.

      A big enough fireball, however, will sterilise the surface of the Earth. I doubt the human race would survive that; we don't have that many cave dwellers left.

      --
      "Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
    13. Re:Not with a BANG but with a 'Kachoo' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We do indeed have a bit to fear from deadly viruses but the probability a virus is going to wipe our species out is probably somewhere around an asteroid impact wiping us out.

      An astroid has to wipe out 100% of all humans in one single instance as compared to a virus which only has to infect ~50% of the population (making every male/female sterile) acomplishes the same conclusion only it takes a little longer.
      The net results are mankind is wiped out but in one instance it is immedient while the next might take a few years.

      Using common sense statistics which is more likely?
      Unfornatuly we have to play with math...
      To kill an entire population do we go with the tried and true facet of kill every single organism which could be next to impossible or the more likely make everyone sterile and just wait for nature to take it's course.

  36. One handgrenad planted on the side of the asteroid by zymano · · Score: 1
    Plant the grenade or small explosive right now ,could move it enough out of projected orbit.

    Don't discount it.

    You got a supercomputer???

  37. i say by George+Wanker+Bush · · Score: 0, Funny

    It's NUCULAR war! Or NOCULAR. I'm not sure. Must remember to ask Clinton later today.

    --
    -- Let's go nucular!
    1. Re:i say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, he's a good one to ask. He's got a real head on .. oh, never mind.

  38. So I am going to die by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... when I am 906...

  39. Obligatory Homer Simpson Quote by LoztInSpace · · Score: 2, Funny

    Relax - when it hits it'll be no bigger than a Chihuahua's head.

  40. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Anything to stop the horror that is Adam Sandler. I'll pay any price.

  41. Re:I doubt they will speak English 800 years from by Hellkitten · · Score: 5, Funny

    But they'd be reading Slashdot even then?

    They will, an when the news hits they will complain it's a dupe: "So what the asteroid will hit tomorrow, this is old news it was posted like 800 years ago, fscking slashdot dupes"

    --
    - We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
  42. Are you saying this asteroid kills JEWS ? by zymano · · Score: 0

    maybe howard stern and his renta girlfriend are next ?

  43. This would cause.... by lateralus_1024 · · Score: 1

    ...Tool record sales to really sky rocket. Just watch.

    --
    If you think /. comments are bad, check out Digg.
  44. gnarly... by eeyoredragon · · Score: 1

    "...create 400 foot waves along the east coast."

    at least the surfers will be happy before they bite the big one (the big one being the astroid).

    and i agree, if we haven't figured out how to prevent that in 800 yrs, we have it coming.

    someone mentioned viri as a more probably cause of death, but i doubt that. we all know virus survival depends on slow replication and prefers a low to non-existent mortality rate. a cataclysmic effect on our numbers perhaps, but i doubt very highly that a virus would manage to kill off the entire species in and of itself.

    1. Re:gnarly... by BrainInAJar · · Score: 1

      AIDS... it could possibly kill us all...

      or genetic causes (cancer, etc)... stuff that we're fine with for a portion of time before it hits us out of nowhere and kills us...

      Or, if the world keeps growing like it is, ebola or somesuch... it depends on close proximity. If the ebola virus hit somewhere like, say, new york, the entire city would be gone in a matter of weeks (i vote we nuke the place pre-emptively)

    2. Re:gnarly... by eeyoredragon · · Score: 1

      Actually, ebola was the virus I was thinking about. It's been around for awhile now and it's still not made a big impact on a world wide scale. The problem with ebola is it's extreme efficiency at killing. Conversely it's inefficiency at survival (at least in humans). You never want to kill your host off in weeks. Pretty scary stuff nonetheless.

  45. year what ?? by KingRamsis · · Score: 1

    I dont think the world will make it that far, but just to be safe I have saved this page for my (grand)^8 son to read it.

  46. simulation, eh? by SystematicPsycho · · Score: 1

    Didn't they already do that in that Bruce Willis movie?

    --
    Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
  47. Needless to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    "....'60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast..."
    Gosh, imagine a Beowolf cluster of those things!

  48. Make money from it.. The Y2880 Bug by SystematicPsycho · · Score: 1

    Call it the Y2880 bug and charge top dollar for consultation fees to make sure that you're ready when it happens. When the dust blows over claim that you did such a good job that everything went smoothly.

    --
    Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
  49. 8 centuries? by trats · · Score: 1
    "From a geologic perspective, events like this have happened many times in the past. Asteroids the size of 1950 DA have probably struck the Earth about 600 times since the age of the dinosaurs," Ward said.
    Dividing 65 million by 600 gives a ginormous asteroid hitting us every 100,000 years. Where was I 100,000 years ago, and where will I be 100,000 years from now?

    (No, I don't trust their estimate of getting hit 800 years from now)
    1. Re:8 centuries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's random. A rate of 1 each 100,000 years is an average. Three might hit at the same time, which would be a real bummer.

  50. Re: Your sig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Make the URL in your signature into a link and you'll get a lot more hits. Most people are too lazy to both paste it in AND remove the space that Slashcode inserts.

  51. east coast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From a news bulletin at that time:
    ...... Strangely enough, the west coasts of both europe and africa seem to have been totally unaffected by the shockwave.

  52. The sad part is... by NamShubCMX · · Score: 1, Funny

    Bruce Willis will proabably be dead byt then. Who will save us?

    --
    We've always been at war with Eurasia.
  53. Disaster Planning by EvlOvrLrd · · Score: 1, Funny

    In light of this report, Tom Ridge is adding Rubber Rafts, or some other floatation devices to the list of items everyone should have on hand. In addition to duct tape and plastic sheet.

    --


    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear to be bright. Until you hear them speak.
    1. Re:Disaster Planning by Eccles · · Score: 1

      In light of this report, Tom Ridge is adding Rubber Rafts, or some other floatation devices to the list of items everyone should have on hand. ...and then we'll pile 'em all up, and the asteroid will just bounce off! Cool!

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
  54. Armageddon outta here by tetro · · Score: 1

    Any chance that Ben Affleck and Bruice Willis were in the simulation either?

    --
    .smell my feet.
  55. Re:Our great^12 grandchildren are going to look ba by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They will say nothing, however your grandchildrens children will say:
    "Tsk Asteroids we assimilated them centuries ago"

  56. Drowned twice over by maroberts · · Score: 1

    By then there is a pretty good chance Las Palmas will have split in two and created a similar tidal wave first, so you Americans on the East Coast may well be drowned already when the asteroid arrives.

    --

    Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
    Karma: Chameleon

    1. Re:Drowned twice over by s-meister · · Score: 1

      I see all the comments about the East Coast. The tsunami from this would spread out in a roughly circular pattern as per a rock in a pond. The waves would also hit the African, South American and European coasts, and eventually they'd hit La Palma and I suspect trigger the landslip that theoretically will cause a tsunami that...I'll stop now.

  57. Here it is by AnEmbodiedMind · · Score: 1

    Here you go

    1. Re:Here it is by BJH · · Score: 2, Informative

      A larger version.

      Or this one, or this one, or this one, or this one, or my favourite: this one.

      Artists seem to like to portray asteroids as being sveral hundred kilometres in size.

    2. Re:Here it is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The bbc.co.uk one isn't bad. Since there is no contact, the asteroid could be of any size because of perspective.

  58. Other headlines in 2880 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Debian 3.0 delayed again: developers blame difficulties of locating 800 year old 32 bit hardware to complete kernel 2.4 testing on. Claim current quantum computers 'not stable enough'.

  59. how about another or two by djupedal · · Score: 5, Informative

    And I suppose none of these angular approches would be negated by gravity? Try to glance a ball bearing off of a magnet and then talk to me about an asteriod with a 1/16 * Pi approach angle. A hit is at least 50% tractor-pull...

    I doubt there are as many distinct/unique hit scenarios as some would propose. This isn't a weeked destruction derby, with hollowed out Cadillacs bouncing off each other in a mud pit.

    Next, asteriods are not known for their 'rotation' as much as they are for tumbling. Neither of which matters much as the gases and kinetic energy involved in a strike will have their way long before actual contact of the two entities. Much like an avalanche, or tsunami, the bulk of the damage is from the shock and pressure wave(s) that arrive before the object/event itself. Contact is after the fact, and I don't think anyone is going to come out from under their desk saying "man! that was close! Good thing it only grazed us!" In this case, a miss really is as good as a hit.

    1. Re:how about another or two by aziraphale · · Score: 1

      When you're talking about bodies moving through space at speeds in excess of the earth's escape velocity (which is likely to be the case for most bodies we encounter - remember, they've got that gravitational pull accellerating them towards us all the way in, and they're starting a long way out), actually the earth's gravity is going to cause very little deflection in the path as it gets close.

      If you ignore the other gravitational sources in the solar system, like the sun, basically any asteroids that you put into that system will be on elliptical paths, with the earth's centre of gravity at one of the foci. To get an ellipse like that to actually intersect the earth, it's got to be a pretty extreme ellipse - long and thin, almost straight. In other words, for the earth to get hit by an asteroid, one needs to take a good long run-up and be coming very fast right at us to hit us.

      In which case, it's a shooting gallery. You can pretty much see the earth as a flat circular target, with the potentially impacting asteroid coming at it perpendicular to the plane of the circle.

      Now, the closer to the edge of the circle the asteroid hits, the more oblique the angle it impacts with the surface. if it hits in the middle, it's a perpendicular impact - if it's at the edge, it comes screaming in horizontally.

      You can do the maths yourself to prove it, but essentially there's an even chance of the asteroid impacting at any angle. There's a fifty fifty chance it'll come in under 45 degrees, fifty fifty that it'll come in above. So, shallow angled impacts are just as likely as high angle impacts.

      If the majority of asteroids come in on the plane of the ecliptic, of course, you get some shifting of the odds according to where you are in the world. If that is the case, for example, if you're at the north pole and you're going to get hit my an asteroid, chances are it'll come in at a very low angle. If you're at the equator and you get hit, well... it could come in at any angle, depending on time of day.

      So, if you're considering asteroid impacts at a particular point on the earth's surface, and that point is far from the equator, then the odds that it'll be an oblique impact may be higher.

      But, as others have pointed out, this is mostly irrelevant in the face of 1/2mv^2 energy wanging into the side of the planet - what angle it does it at isn't likely to matter a whole deal.

    2. Re:how about another or two by MobiusKlein · · Score: 1

      One correction - if the asteroid is moving faster than escape velocity WRT the earth, then it is in a hyperbolic orbit.
      Slower than escape velocity, it's an ellipse, and at escape velocity, it's a parabola.

      The earth could avoid a direct collision if the body still has > escape velocity a closest approach, and is still above the surface.

      And there are theories about the Moon being ejecta from a glancing collision. Some of the collision energy may spew debris into space as well. Explorers have found Martian rocks in Antartica you know.

      rbb

  60. hey , we're over here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    In the event that it impacts in the Atlantic, they predict that the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast
    Western Europe wouldn't fare too well either. Ireland always seems to escape unscathed from movie disasters - at least you never see the destruction.

    I hear the deluxe edition of 'Deep Impact' features a brief scene on an Irish Boreen, 'Bejay - what's that?' sez one cap-wearing beckett character to another before both are engulfed by a 400 ft wave.

    Crumbs - I know - but I'd buy it.

  61. Be prepared by aaaurgh · · Score: 1

    In case the wave sweeps away the earth on top, I'm gonna get buried in a carbon fibre coffin with built-in floatation devices, distress beacon, 2-way radio, snorkle and small tank of air... just in case I happen to wake up just at the wrong time.

    Hah, comet schmomet.

    --

    Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
    1. Re:Be prepared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That would be a snorkel, I believe. From the German Schnorkel. Or something.

    2. Re:Be prepared by aaaurgh · · Score: 1

      Yeah, aw'right - Schnorkel, Schmorkel... we'll all be speaking Esperanto or Dolphin by then.

      --

      Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
    3. Re:Be prepared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You expect to wake up in your coffin? Err...

      Anyway, you'll have a lot of preparing to do whether or not you expect the comet. If anything, the comet will spare you the trouble of digging yourself up...

  62. Re:UC SANTA CRUZ by madsenj37 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Grades are now the standard (default) here at UCSC. As far as I know, us older students are the only ones left who can choose which classes we want grades in.

    --
    Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
  63. East Coast by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You mean that the North Sea would be so badly affected - there goes Norfolk! and forget the Thames barrier.

  64. A picture is worth a 1000 words by mrklin · · Score: 4, Informative
    Consider this my first 1000-word post. :)

    Pic

    1. Re:A picture is worth a 1000 words by rbolkey · · Score: 1

      Wow! I'm amazed. I had no idea our coast could handle an impact like that. The wave just dissipates right on our shore. The US is indestructible!

    2. Re:A picture is worth a 1000 words by RealErmine · · Score: 1

      I think it's idiocy to believe that the tsunami will be those colors when the asteroid hits.

      --
      Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
  65. Re:UC SANTA CRUZ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fortunetly, the student body has changed into a normal university (with grades, frats, sororities and all!). The administrators on the other hand, are still at "Uncle Charlie's Summer Camp" and are too fucking hippy to reform the school's image.

  66. Re:One handgrenad planted on the side of the aster by imsabbel · · Score: 1

    The problem is long time accuracy. Perhaps the small blast will just move it right on target. Hey, it is even numerically challanging to prodict the orbit for 800 years with such a high resolution.

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  67. How far must I run? by HuskyDog · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Well, its all very interesting, but it doesn't address the most fundamental question, which is:

    How far inland does one have to be to avoid a 400 foot wave?

    1. Re:How far must I run? by botzi · · Score: 1

      I'd consider being aboveland instead of inland..... Buy an airplane, dude, that's the only way to save your ass 500 years from now;oP....

      --
      1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
    2. Re:How far must I run? by TFloore · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The easy answer there?

      The other side of the Appalacians. Nothing like a small mountain range to block a big wall of water.

      Or have you seen the Rockies, and now consider the Appalacians to just be kinda tall foothills? Still tall enough. But you might not want to be standing in the Cumberland Gap.

      --
      This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
    3. Re:How far must I run? by pclminion · · Score: 1
      How far inland does one have to be to avoid a 400 foot wave?

      Um, I think if you run inland, and keep running until you are 400 feet above sea level, you will avoid a 400 foot wave.

      Hey, but I could be wrong.

    4. Re:How far must I run? by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      I remember hiking through the Cumberland Gap... man that was a pain, but not nearly as bad as Lehigh Gap - that sucker was not only straight down and up, but all of that loose rock from the Zinc strip mines made it dangerous and toxic! Nothing like hiking through an EPA superfund area to get your tired feet moving.

    5. Re:How far must I run? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      but not nearly as bad as Lehigh Gap

      Wow, what bad memories you bring back. I love hiking, but I absolutely hated this hike, and that's about the only one of hundreds I can put in that category. I did it with my Boy Scout troop in 6th or 7th grade. What a dumb idea that was - I seem to remember everybody slipping on loose rocks the whole time. We didn't even know about the toxicity!

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    6. Re:How far must I run? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      It's complicated.

      First, if the rise and run of the land was 1:1 from the ocean and the wave was a triangular wave, at 400 feet inland you'd miss the wave. Except the shockwave would still kill you as the land you're standing on would explode from the impact. With a real wave shape, there'd be water build up too to consider, raising the effective height.

      Now, if there's a plain several hundred miles long but with only, say 100 feet of elevation, you're probably still OK, as there's only so much water in the wave. Even a completely flat area would be safe eventually.

      So, there's some function to be worked out between elevation and distance from shore, and energy in the wave. For somebody less lazy to work out, that is.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    7. Re:How far must I run? by MentalHelpDesk · · Score: 1

      Well, if you live near New York City or the George Washington Bridge, just head to nothern NJ. I'm fairly certain that the Palisades Cliffs that run along the East coast of Bergen County NJ are over 400 ft high. Plus, it would be pretty cool to watch all the destruction from such a great vantage point.

    8. Re:How far must I run? by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      Yeha, there are several warnings in many books about hiking the A.T. that under no circumstances should you venture off of the appalachian trail near the lehigh gap. There is a 18-mile stretch that is listed as a "no water" zone.

      Scary what the industrial revolution has done to our environment.

  68. Isn't this one of the reasons we need a Moonbase? by zakezuke · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The problem I see when ever any reads an article like this is the fact that they think, "oh well, that's so long away, I won't worry about it", when in reality the danger is real. Not nessicarly 1950 DA, but earth asteroid impact is a realistic happening, though pretty rare. Given our present technology, it takes months to prep a shuttle, and we don't really have much experence beyond sending probes to the outer / inner planets, let alone anything close to a game plan in the event that that a huge object is set to smack into the earth.

    We spend much time monitoring volcanos, fault lines, things that have proven to cause a danger to man, yet we still don't have much in the way of program to reliably spot dangers from our own solar system, which while we haven't had a trully catastrophic event in human history, there is enough in the way of evidence that this sorta event does take place.

    Even the smaller meteor strikes which are much more common place, though less destrictive then many forms of earth natural disaster, are much more common place, and near as I can tell, there pretty much isn't any program to detect and alert people as to the danger. The best thing we got are amature astrometers, who have been great, but are limited to earth bound telescopes.

    This is why we need a space program... if but for nothing else but to provide simple observation satalights in orbit to help detect such threats in advance.

    A moon base would also be somewhat spiffy too as far as creating a staging area in the event we do actually find a huge rock with a destination of earth.

    --
    There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
  69. Payback is a mo' fo' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Payback is a mo' fo'. Don't mess with Texas. Don't eat yellow snow. Stay away from the purple acid. And for goodness' sakes, don't drink the grape kool-aid! Oh, yeah, and, Heads Up!

  70. oh well by Debian+Troll · · Score: 2, Funny

    Debian 3.0 delayed again: developers blame difficulties of locating 800 year old 32 bit hardware to complete kernel 2.4 testing on. Claim current quantum computers 'not stable enough'. spare a moment to think of joel "espy" klecker.

  71. In 2880 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We'll still just be smoking pot and dropping acid at UC Santa Cruz, which may explain this report...

  72. Phew, I was worried for a second! by 10Ghz · · Score: 1
    In the event that it impacts in the Atlantic, they predict that the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast


    Phew, at least Europe is safe!
    --
    Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
  73. path of the tsunami by redbullman · · Score: 1

    in the video did anyone else notice that they didnt take into effect what edges of land, like oh say florida, would do to the path of the wave? wouldnt it whip around in the guf due to some effect that i forgot the name of. and likewise deposit crazy amounts of sand somewhere too? i dunno.im just overthinking it arent i?

  74. this is old news... by Debian+Troll · · Score: 3, Informative

    yawn...

    according to this story, this simulation was done on a debian cluster running the hurd.

    check out the date, it was published months ago.

    1. Re:this is old news... by SComps · · Score: 1

      True.. only on slashdot could a non-event article of this magnitude generate such a broad range of comments from funny, to insightful to self righteous. God I love the internet. Maybe I will take up the basket weaving class.

    2. Re:this is old news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course, from someone called "Debian Troll" one would expect that the information is BS and the link is goatse...

  75. not really smart by mholt108 · · Score: 1

    You would have to accelerate to the speed of the asteroid anyway so what is the benefit. You would have no way of changing course and would have no ultimate gain.

    1. Re:not really smart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      C'mon man use your imagination, do I have to think of everything around here? You burst up to speed a little before the comet comes within range, then you harpoon it and wench onto the thing. Bring a laser to take care of the debris you might encounter. And who cares about changing course. You're on a fantastic voyage through outer space. Just bring enough food, water, air, and entertainment to last the next hundred years! Don't they transmit television signals to outer space?

      Imagination leads to innovation.

  76. These guys would love it! by Cackmobile · · Score: 3, Funny

    Check out the Billabong XXL Surf Contest. They are only surfing 66 footers now. This would have them creaming the inside of their strides.

    --
    -- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
    1. Re:These guys would love it! by cap'n+foolsy · · Score: 1

      there's probably some insane surfer who actually WOULD get off on a wave like that :P think about it. it's the perfect wave.

      --
      It might look like I'm standing motionless, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away
    2. Re:These guys would love it! by Bombcar · · Score: 1
  77. Not Photoshop. by c.emmertfoster · · Score: 1

    That's a shot from Total Recall, a Schwarzenegger flick from 1990, very loosely based upon a Philip K. Dick short story. Damn fine movie.

    --
    We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
    1. Re:Not Photoshop. by sledd_1 · · Score: 1


      Total Recall is a Piers Anthony story.

      --
      I know a little sig that's just ten words long
    2. Re:Not Photoshop. by Zirnike · · Score: 1
      "Total Recall is a Piers Anthony story."

      ...based on a Phillip K. Dick short story.

      http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1990/0 6/549944.html (second paragraph, or try google yourself, for free!)

      --
      I'm not shy, I'm stalking my prey
    3. Re:Not Photoshop. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Total Recall
      [Novelization of the movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger]
      [Based on Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale"]

  78. It's a neat article but... by Mostly+Monkey · · Score: 1

    I would hope that humanity has the technology after almost 900 years to be able to stop such a disaster.

    --
    Chika Chik-ah... do-e ow ow.
  79. Whew! by alexjohns · · Score: 1

    '400 foot high waves'? My little Garmin Emap says that I'm at 435' of altitude, here in Maryland. I guess I'll be laughing at all the guys down the hill a little ways, sitting on their roofs, trying to stay dry. Do I know how to pick 'em or do I know how to pick 'em? Some people say coincidence or blind luck, I say 'Asteroid Collision Simulation Software'. It's good to be a geek.

    1. Re:Whew! by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      Well, the think that you're overlooking here is that the wave is going to have a significant amount of forward momentum and kinetic energy when it hits land. All of that intertia is going to carry the water right up the hill, likely much farther than 35 feet. So, guess what, you're screwed :)

    2. Re:Whew! by alexjohns · · Score: 1

      I sneer at your momentum and kinetic energy. My blind faith will see me through. If need be, I'll just buy a bunch of sand bags and pile them up to absorb all your meaningless physics terms. Take that!

  80. Cowabunga! Surfs up! by croftj · · Score: 1

    With 400 foot waves I better start waxing my surf board now.

    --
    -- Many men would appreciate a woman's mind more if they could fondle it
  81. Interesting "fact" by minton · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "The so-called K/T impact, for example, ended the age of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago." So this is now a fact? Why wasn't I told?

    1. Re:Interesting "fact" by minton · · Score: 1

      LOL....figures it would be an Anonymous Coward.

      Were volcanic eruptions, diseases, etc. disproven or the landing of a meteor or astroid proven as the cause?

      At my school, we were taught to think for ourselves and not to take for fact everything somebody else writes. Try it sometime, it doesn't hurt as much as you think.

  82. 2880? by fgb · · Score: 1

    by then we'll have the technology to move Earth out of the way, right?

    I *suppose* we could alter the asteroid's course, but that wouldn't be as cool.

    1. Re:2880? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      by then we'll have the technology to move Earth out of the way, right?


      Duh, we have the Superfriends. They routinely moved planets out of the way! Of course, since they never put them back into proper orbit, it will just buy us some time until we crash into the Sun.

  83. YES!!! by hummassa · · Score: 1

    I have hit a brick wall at 215 kph at an angle of 30 degrees (relative to the wall, not the normal) AND I'm here to tell you this.

    --
    It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
    1. Re:YES!!! by Alsee · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have hit a brick wall at 215 kph at an angle of 30 degrees (relative to the wall, not the normal) AND I'm here to tell you this.

      Pretty much irrelevant. The asteroid would hit at a velocity 300 times faster. The energy is one-half mass times velocity squared. That "squared" part means you are looking at 90,000 times as much energy per unit of mass. That's enough to vaporize not only your car but a huge section of the wall as well.

      Then consider the fact that the asteroid is around a billion times more massive than your car. You're looking at about a hundred trillion times as much total energy. The atmosphere wont noticably slow it down even on a "grazing" angle. If it touches the ground at even a 2 degree angle you vaporize not only the asteroid, but several cubic kilometers (or cubic miles) of the earth as well. Heck, the grazing hit could be worse. A direct hit would sink much of the energy downwards into the earth to dissipate. A grazing hit would vaporize a long shallow stretch of the surface dumping the energy where it can do the most harm.

      A few of the details may vary, but the general result is the same.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    2. Re:YES!!! by hummassa · · Score: 1

      You seem to forget that in impacts, it's NOT the energy (mass*velocity^2) but the linear momentum (mass*velocity) that gets transfered. If the impact (of the asteroid) comes in a small angle relative to the earth, energy will disspate in a larger area, with smaller temperatures. If I had hit the brick wall in a 90 degrees angle, I would be dead by now, broken neck and ribs perforating my lungs and other internal organs in pieces. But as I banged laterally in the wall, the enery disspated (as did the left side of my vehicle). End result: some broken-glass-induced scars in the face and the hands.

      --
      It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
    3. Re:YES!!! by Alsee · · Score: 1

      You seem to forget that in impacts, it's NOT the energy (mass*velocity^2) but the linear momentum (mass*velocity) that gets transfered.

      Actually both energy and momentum must be conserved.

      If the impact (of the asteroid) comes in a small angle relative to the earth, energy will disspate in a larger area, with smaller temperatures.

      Exactly, but the energy level is so high that it still vaporizes that area. As I said, it could be worse at a small angle because you are vaporizing a larger area to a lower temperature. But it's still vaporized. You wind up with more vapor, it's just somewhat less absurdly hot.

      BIf I had hit the brick wall in a 90 degrees angle, I would be dead by now... but as I banged laterally in the wall, the enery disspated

      I understand that. The difference is that you simply can't dissipate energy on this scale. Everything involved gets vaporized. It's just a slightly different arrangement of something like ten thousand or more cubic miles of vapor. It really doesn't matter much what it's shaped like :D

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  84. Comfort Ye by ReadParse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does anybody else feel unbelievably comforted that the biggest asteroid concern scientists have is 800 years from now? I guess that pretty much rules out the possibility of getting hit by an asterioid by surprise.

    1. Re:Comfort Ye by RodgerDodger · · Score: 1

      No, it doesn't.

      There are a bunch of asteriods that are known to have orbits co-inciding with Earth's. These orbits tend to be elliptical, and the other end is usually out near Jupiter's orbit. Most scientists think that we have identified and tracked most asteriods that are in this category, and the ones that are left are probably the smaller ones anyway.

      However, there are a bunch of other types of objects that come into Earth's orbit that we don't know about. Comets are a great example; most comets come way inside of Earth's orbit, and new comets are being discovered all the time.

      With comets, at least, you tend to spot them fairly early on, because of the characteristic halo they develop as they approach the Sun. But comets aren't the only objects that share similar orbits; there are rocks on those hyperbolic orbits as well, and rocks tend to be a lot harder to spot.

      There was a Near-Earth asteriod event a few months ago; the asteriod passed within the orbit of the Moon, and it was only spotted three days after it passed us by. If it had hit, we quite possibly wouldn't have seen it coming in at all. How many more objects like this are there?

      --
      "Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
  85. Something like this... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    could happen much sooner, and come from this very planet. I recently watched a show televised on TLC (The Learning Channel) about several islands in the mid to north Atlantic ocean, the Canaries and Madeira among them, that are volcanic in nature. The idea proposed on the show was that on one of these islands (Iforget which), there is a volcano that is based literally on the coast and if it was to erupt and the side was to slide into the ocean, it would create a tsunami 600 feet high that would have enough momentum to carry itself straight through to the US Atlantic coast where it would still be between 300-400 high. And, oh, did I mention that it will be travelling at 600 MPH! I didn't believe that speed when I heard it and did a double take, but the narrator repeated the speed like he was sure that no one else would believe it either. Let's see... 3500 miles from the US coast divided by 600 MPH... that's roughly 6 hours to get the hell out of dodge if you're an east coast dweller. They also said that the floods that would result would affect people as far in as Kansas. Said flood would also affect the river levels and flood the tributaries. This would cause major crop damage, destry infrastructure like dams, berms, and controlled water flow.
    So, this could happen in our lifetimes if this volcano was to erupt. It is way past due for another eruption. The last known eruption was in the 1700s. The volcano barely erupted, but many people were killed and the landscape was changed in such a way that the next eruption will likely cause the landmass to slide into the ocean causing the above problem.

  86. Re:One handgrenad planted on the side of the aster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or it could move it right in the fucking way.

  87. We will however be able to thank it for one thing by TheConfusedOne · · Score: 0

    FIRST PO>......*BLIP*

    --
    --- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
  88. One good sci-fi/science moment in it by TheConfusedOne · · Score: 1
    I think the whole dissertation on the asteroid impact effects was truely brilliant.


    "When the mass is above a certain size, it stops being important whether Earth has an atmosphere or not."

    "Except to us," Forrester said, deadpan.

    Sharps paused a second, then laughed... "What we need is a good analogy. Um..." Sharps' brow furrowed.

    "Hot fudge sundae," said Forrester.

    "Hah?"

    Forrester's grin was wide through his beard. "A cubic mile of hot fudge sundae. Cometary speeds."


    Remember, Hot Fudge Sundae falls on a Tuesdae...
    --
    --- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
  89. Call in the cloners! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    We better rush to get some DNA samples from Bruce Willis. We're gonna need him in about 880 years!

  90. Comet Impact in 2880!? by luwain · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Considering the the Bush Administration's current environmental policies will render the planet uninhabitable within the next 2 decades, i think any disaster a few centuries from now shouls only cause concern for some sturdy strains of nematodes, viruses and prions...

  91. Re:Actually...from dictionary.com by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

    From Dictionary.com:

    nuclear ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nkl-r, ny-)
    adj.
    Biology. Of, relating to, or forming a nucleus: a nuclear membrane.
    Physics. Of or relating to atomic nuclei: a nuclear chain reaction.
    Using or derived from the energy of atomic nuclei: nuclear power.
    Of, using, or possessing atomic or hydrogen bombs: nuclear war; nuclear nations.

    --

    Lodragan Draoidh
    The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
  92. 2880?!?! by Your+Anus · · Score: 1

    Wow... Bruce Willis will be pretty old by then.

    --

    In the USA, we like stuff watered down, like beer, television, and freedom.
  93. Re:I doubt they will speak English 800 years from by SEWilco · · Score: 1

    Good point. Surely a colliding asteroid should be measured in units based on the dimensions of the Earth.

  94. Who will save the children? by resignator · · Score: 1

    Won't anyone think of the children?

    --
    "At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
  95. No problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By 2880 we'll just be able to use the USS Enterprise to tractor beam the asteroid out of the way.

  96. Don't count on it by Roy+Ward · · Score: 1

    > I'd consider being aboveland instead of inland..... Buy an airplane, dude, that's the only way to save your ass 500 years from now;oP....

    There'd be an awful lot of air turbulence as a result of this unless you were up really high ... and maybe not so many options for places to land.

    1. Re:Don't count on it by botzi · · Score: 1
      and maybe not so many options for places to land.

      Who said anything about landing???;oP.....

      --
      1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
  97. Re:I doubt they will speak English 800 years from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow, you actually read past the first sentence of that jibber-jabbger. I don't know who's more pathetic, the person who wrote that, the persons who read it, or the person who's criticising the persons who read it.

  98. No problem if we plan ahead by paiute · · Score: 1

    This is really not a problem if we use the beauty of the compound interest. If only one of us goes to the bank tomorrow and establishes a "Save the Earth from the 2880 Rock" fund and puts in $1, then at a reasonable return of 4% compounded quarterly, in 877 years the account will contain $867,438,242,859,150.80, which should be enough to fund any solution.

    Unless of course we have some minor inflation and all that will buy in the year 2880 is a bottle of cheap wine.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
  99. Redefinition of Coast by SEWilco · · Score: 1
    the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast

    I think in this situation, "coast" is a little irrelevant, as the scale of an area "near" the ocean is not applicable. Eastern side of the North American continent is a better description.

    The highest point in Florida is a little under 400 feet, and most is well under that, so that would be hit really hard. Topography of southern Florida. The article says 200 foot wave is the minimum along the East coast...and I don't know if running opposite to the Gulf stream would affect the height.

    Not that elsewhere nearby is much safer. Another bad place to be would be the WEST side of the Appalachians where the waves happen to reach over it -- as that flash flood would sweep downhill for another huge distance.

  100. Superman by Jack+Comics · · Score: 1

    So long as Superman gets up off his ass, we should be fine. According to the "Lois & Clark" documentary back in the mid '90s, he can live for several centuries, possibly even millenia. The only problem is ever since he single-handedly changed the Earth's planetary rotation twice in one day back in 1978, he's gotten very lazy. Lately, he looks more like Dan Goodman in underroos than Christopher Reeve. Good God, man! Stop eating all those twinkies and go hunt down Lex Luthor's evil toupee or something.

    --
    "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
  101. RTFA then by blitz1725 · · Score: 1

    The 60,000-megaton blast of the impact vaporizes the asteroid and blows a cavity in the ocean 11 miles across and all the way down to the seafloor, which is about 3 miles deep at that point. The blast even excavates some of the seafloor. That last little line is the big one, depending on how deep the ocean is where it hits will determine how much of the ocean floor it will throw up in the atmosphere. Also, I would like to know what theory you have that says a 60,000 MEGATON asteroid won't heat up to OMFG hot on entry into our atmosphere. Assuming you don't have one, which you don't, all that heat has to be dissapated to somewhere and hey look this wet stuff evaporates. As for the wave height sure the low countries should be concerned but what about the island countries (cuba, Puerto Rico, etc) some of the smaller ones could be wiped off the map, also keep in mind most of the tsunamis the world has dealt with have only been around 10-15m in height with the tallest being arount 75m I believe. So no one really knows what will happen when the 400 ft wave hits New York and starts going inland.

  102. Will Bruce Willis have *any* hair by then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He'll probably have learned to sing better, tho.

  103. in the year 2525, when man is still alive.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... there was that famous song somewhere...

    are we still gonna be around 2880 ???

    doubt it that mankind will live thru the bush administration period ....

  104. They can predict that it'll hit off the east coast by A55M0NKEY · · Score: 1

    But they aren't sure it'll even hit earth at all? For some reason I don't think they know for sure where it'll hit if it does..

    --

    Eat at Joe's.

  105. It is just a simulation of a theory by sdack · · Score: 1

    It is known, that if you have more than three objects in space, their prediction runs of into chaos. That is why in astronomy they start using chaos theory.

    Now this one, will most likely not happen. First of all, it is named 1950 ... think ... and it is said that it will impact in 2880.

    In other words, it is an extra polation so far into the future, that it has no meaning at all and that it may well collide with some other object at some other time or gets obsoleted by a greater-than-0.3-candidate (sorry if I got your hopes up for a second).

    All the scientists did who simulated this impact was to take this as their best guess for input into their simulation and to present something fascinating and not something that is compeletely off of this world.

    Cheers, Sven

  106. Twilight Zone by LMCBoy · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but in one of those ironic Twilight Zone (tm) plot twists, the ATM only gives you pre-Euro European currency!! And then the guy in red greasepaint, horns and a goatee appears to laugh maniacally at you.

    I hate when that happens.

    --
    Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
  107. 400ft waves are not possible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The maximum theoretical wave height that saltwater can achieve is 263ft. The highest recorded wave ever, I believe, was 170ft. After 263ft, the wave crest is so large it simply cannot sustain itself and the wave will break.

    1. Re:400ft waves are not possible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This isn't a normal wave being formed by wind. The base is miles wide, and the bottom parts of the wave are moving at least as fast as the top parts. There's nowhere for the wave to break to.

    2. Re:400ft waves are not possible by Brad1138 · · Score: 1

      I am not sure where you got your figures but with enough displacement there is no limit to the height of a wave. I have seen numerous Discovery channel shows on waves and a 1500 ft wave was recorded after a massive land slide not all that long ago. Also as a wave approaches the shore its height grows dramatically and waves of 1000+ ft are possible.

      --
      If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
    3. Re:400ft waves are not possible by Ken+Erfourth · · Score: 1

      Not true. The highest recorded wave was caused by an earthquake induced collapse of a glaciar in Lituya Bay, Alaska. The top of the wave reached a height of 1720 feet as it roared out of the narrow channel. Three boats were in the bay when the event ocurred. One of the boats (a fishing trawler--very seaworthy) survived the wave. One of the others was lost with all hands, and the third was washed out to sea and sank, but the crew was rescued. The height of the wave was determined by measuring how high up on the opposite cliff the trees were washed away. Here's a modeling of the event. Notice that the terminus of the wave washing on the shore (at 36 seconds) is higher than the mid-bay maximum at 16 seconds. http://www.sthjournal.org/205/lituya.pdf

      --
      Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
  108. I'm waxin' my woody as we speak by mnemotronic · · Score: 1
    waves as high as 400 feet sweeping onto the Atlantic Coast of the United States

    Oh baaaaby. This calls for the loooong board. Wait a minute. March 16, 2880? Dude. Isn't that like, way off in the future or something? 406 Dude.

    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  109. Saw the same special, i think the name was by Unknown+Poltroon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    monserrat(sp). Yeah, masive landslide. THey also had a special about supervolcanoes, one of which might have literally almost wiped out the human race 75000 years ago. Volcano was called toba, and they think its responsible for the bottleneck in the human gene pool about 75000 years ago, where the human race was down to like a thousand individuals world wide. THink nuclear winter times 100. Oh, also, yellowstone park, with the happy fun geisers is another one of these volcanos of the same type, it goes of every 600,000 years or so. Last went off 600,000 years ago. SO id avoid yellostone. really intersting stuff. Look it up.

    --
    All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
  110. Um...? by Theaetetus · · Score: 2, Funny
    Here you go

    Um, isn't that the image of what happened one minute before the goatse picture was taken? (ewwww)

    -T

  111. Tunguska by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The object that struck Siberia in the early part of the twentieth century entered the atmosphere at an oblique angle. The consequential surface heating caused the object to break apart and strike the surface of the planet in several distinct parts. While this didn't change the amount of kinetic energy involved, it did alter the strike range and direction of the blast. If an object strikes the Atlantic Ocean at the appropriate angle, it's possible that an enormous tidal wave will destroy the UK while leaving the US relatively unharmed. If a large object breaks up in descent, it might devastate multiple US cities as opposed to only vaporizing New York.

  112. 900th birthday!! by smegball · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Massive tsunami sweeps Atlantic Coast in asteroid impact scenario for March 16, 2880...

    Just in time to celebrate my 900th birthday!!!
    Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear-- Ahhhhh Massive tsunami coming...gurgle...gurg...

  113. Asteroid 2880 by JerryLs · · Score: 1

    So what?

    --
    Ad Astra Per Asper
  114. racist or ignorant??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This article is really quite disturbing...

    According to the map they show that volcano is
    just pretty much off the west coast of africa.
    But they say the Carribean and the east coast of
    the US will take the major hit...

    what about bloody africa???? Is just really nobody
    giving a shite about people living in africa or
    do their models actually predict a mainly westwards
    oriented tsunami????

    this is disturbing...

    ok, did a bit of research and here's the relevant
    part of an article at
    http://www.benfieldhrc.org/CentreNews/press%20 rele ases/tsunami_more%20info.htm

    "The greatest effects are predicted to occur north, west and south of the Canaries. On the West Saharan shore waves are expected to reach heights of 100 metres from crest to trough and on the north coast of Brazil waves over 40 metres high are anticipated. Florida and the Caribbean, the final destinations in the North Atlantic to be affected by the tsunami, will have to brace themselves for receiving 50 metre high waves - higher than Nelson's column in London, some 8 to 9 hours after the landslide. Towards Europe waves heights will be smaller, but substantial tsunami waves will hit the Atlantic coasts of Britain, Spain Portugal and France."

  115. When the time comes ... by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 1
    ..people will point to the dire predictions of Y2K problems back in the 20th century and claim the whole issue of an impending asteroid collision is invented by unscrupulous consultants trying to sell their unnecessary services. The question is: will they be right?

    Realistically, by then it will be of academic interest as the human race will have succeeded in eliminating every living creature on earth except for cockroaches (and consultants, of course) anyway.

  116. Other, Much More Likely Wave Scenarios by istartedi · · Score: 1

    A landslide from one of the Hawiian volcanoes could send similar waves throughout the Pacific rim. There are 10s of millions of people (more than 100 million?) living in cities that would be wiped off the map by that.

    The Discovery channel occasionally re-runs that bit about an island in the east Atlantic that could do the same thing to the east coast of the US.

    So, before we start fussing about asteroids in 2880, perhaps we ought to come up with a way to figure out how to control the geology right hear on Earth.

    IANAG, but perhaps we could safely remove material from the tops of these peaks without triggering an eruption, and use that material to build a wall that would contain the slide. Not only would the potential energy release from the slide be reduced, but it might also be possible to contain the wave behind the wall. If the slide displaces nothing but air and then hits a wall, there is no wave to propogate.

    Of course that doesn't work for an asteroid, because you don't know where it's going to hit.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  117. Atmospheric Entry Physics by Detritus · · Score: 1

    RAND did a report on the use of space based weapons, Space Weapons Earth Wars. It has some interesting analysis of the practicality and performance of space based kinetic energy weapons, both artificial and natural. See Appendix B. A tungsten sphere with a radius of 1 meter, entering at 11 km/s and 60, will retain 34% of its kinetic energy and 99% of its mass to impact. The impact will release the equivalent of 422 tons of TNT in kinetic energy.

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  118. yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2880? Man I already got the telesync foo

  119. Just fine. by haraldm · · Score: 1
    In the event that it impacts in the Atlantic, they predict that the '60,000 megaton blast' would create 400 foot waves along the east coast.

    Well if it's just the east coast that's fine with me. Or am I missing some irony here?

    --
    open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
  120. Bob the Angry Flower weighs in by MrEd · · Score: 1
    --

    Wah!

  121. supercomputer??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    You got a supercomputer???

    Supercomputer? Gees Louise, if an Apple laptop can take out a sentient alien race, surely it can take care of a rock.

  122. that's just plain wrong by ztwilight · · Score: 1

    I did the math, and in 2880, it's not going to hit the east coast. It's going to smack straight into Uranus.

    --
    Who moved my sig?
  123. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure, YOU're here, but what happened to the car? Not many asteroids have impact-absorption zones and passenger restraints.

  124. Re:One handgrenad planted on the side of the aster by JM_the_Great · · Score: 1

    Might make it hit an orbit or two earlier too ;) Such far off predictions are hardly accurate. There are so many variables involved and it's a very chaotic system, dependant on small differences in initial conditions. In short... who knows what it might do.

    --

    --Justin Mitchell
    "2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
  125. Re:I doubt they will speak English 800 years from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I realize now that my soul is forfeit. I could actually read that entire message at only a 10% speed reduction. Why, God, why? I don't even use IRC!

  126. My impacted hemorrhoids hurt by nzyank · · Score: 1

    and I don't have to wait until 2088

  127. Just learned about this in class by zeon · · Score: 1

    It was really cool for me to see this posted here becuase I am currently taking a class from Eric Asphaug at UCSC. On the midterm he even asked us when 1950DA would impact. I haven't met the other guy, but Asphaug is really a great professor and his class is actually a lot of fun.

  128. Running to the Store to get a Palm Zire! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's see, $95.00 for a cheap Palm, sit down for an evening and figure out how to put "Year 2880, put on swimming trunks, flippers, etc. and get ready for Asteroid-produced Tidal Wave".
    Now that I've entered that, I can sit down and wait for the alarm to go off on my Zire in the year 2880, so I can read the message on the tiny screen and act accordingly...

  129. A Few of Saint Joan of Arc's Notable Quotables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Je me attens a Dieu, mon createur, de tout; je layme (l'ayme) de tout mon cuer"
    "I place trust in God, my creator, in all things; I love Him with all my heart."

    "Je me attens a mon juge, cest (c'est) le roy du ciel et de la terre"
    "I trust in my Judge, who is the King of Heaven and Earth".

    Saint Joan of Arc at Vaucouleurs:
    Asked who her Lord was, she replied: "He is the King of Heaven!"
    Asked if she was afraid: "I fear nothing for God is with me!"

    Saint Joan of Arc's last words:
    "Hold the crucifix up before my eyes so I may see it until I die."
    "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!"
    -------
    If you were unfortunate enough to watch the movie The Messenger, this is NOT what Saint Joan of Arc was like. Watch the Joan of Arc miniseries starring Leelee Sobieski as Joan of Arc and you'll see a more accurate representation of who Saint Joan of Arc was and is.

    St. Joan of Arc pray for us!

  130. Re:Isn't this one of the reasons we need a Moonbas by sankeld · · Score: 0

    What do you think happened to the other moon we used to have?

    Remove the e-mail to NOSPAM

  131. Don't worry, we are only inside a matrix by jonearth · · Score: 1

    Destroying this matrix is no big deal, we still have matrix inside matrix inside matrix...

  132. Hydropower? by Kwiik · · Score: 1

    What's the chances of converting a good part of this to hydropower? We already have Hoover Dam providing a large amount of electricity..and that's from a desert!

    We could probably even use excess electricity to keep the waves in a wirl pool/funnel state to keep it from hitting the coast, or to force the waves down..

    --
    Vehicle Stars used car search is my current project
  133. Re:I doubt they will speak English 800 years from by gurps_npc · · Score: 1

    Perhaps they will not be speaking english, but I guarantee that within 15 years, that poor excuse for a non-language called elite speak will have vanished into the darkness of failed arrogance.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  134. Re:Accuracy (Goes past Mars too...) by lent · · Score: 1
    From Science Magazine
    If the spin axis of 1950 DA is fixed near our direct rotation pole solution, solar pressure and asteroid perturbations could counter the Yarkovsky effect so that the probability of a collision in 2880 would be comparable to that of the initial detection case of 0.33%. Thus, the impact probability currently lies in the interval from 0 to 0.33%, where the upper bound will increase or decrease more rapidly as physical knowledge improves than as ground-based optical astrometry accumulates. We are unable to calculate a reliable, specific collision probability, because the trajectory uncertainties are dominated by unmeasured or poorly determined systematic physical effects.


    And don't forget it goes out past Mars, too! For more calculation fun, of course, don't forget :-)
    1. Galactic tide
    2. Numerical integration error
    3. Solar mass loss
    4. Solar oblateness
    5. 61 additional asteroids [not included in their model]
    6. Planetary mass uncertainty
    7. Solar radiation pressure


    And a wacky idea I've had floating around for a while:
    Could the "hole" which produced Hawaii be the result of an ancient impact? Then the Hawaiian Islands, the Hawaiian Ridge and the Emperor Seamounts are just a record of the Pacific plate drifting over that impact site, which is still bubbling...

    And if you accept that, what produced the "sudden" left turn in the volcanic chain? Did the Pacific plate go "bump"?

  135. Possible Scenarios of "the end" by Master_Foaly · · Score: 1

    Probably very little chance of converting it to hydropower. Even if it were theoretically possible, there is far too much risk involved. Still, it would be neat if we could. On the other hand If asteroids don't do us in (or at least hurt us), then perhaps these might. The link goes to the BBC Radio 4 science website. There are 5 radio programs about the different theories of the end of the universe. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/briefhistory.s html