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Closest Asteroid Yet Flies Past Earth
lmcl writes "New Scientist reports that an asteroid about the size of a small house passed just 88,000 kilometres from the Earth by on Saturday 27 September - the closest approach of a natural object ever recorded. Geostationary communication satellites circle the Earth 42,000km from the planet's centre. The asteroid, designated 2003 SQ222, came from inside the Earth's orbit and so was only spotted after it had whizzed by."
I thought I felt something.
last week we had one in India. Now this. Are this just fragments of a much larger object that is heading towards earth? I hope not.
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
First the Indian one then this. A mere coincidence or perhaps the remnants or a relatively recent asteroid collision?
A blog like any other.
a few days ago APOD had posted this picture. If this picture was taken recently, maybe the asteroid and the fireball are related.
The asteroid, designated 2003 SQ222, came from inside the Earth's orbit and so was only spotted after it had whizzed by.
I think I speak for all of us when I say:
Gah.
The coolest voice ever.
truly, the first and ONLY time this phrase will ever be warranted:
OMG I JUST CRAPPED MY PANTS LOL
should have got my giant shotgun out to try and shoot it. Next time.
-Tim Louden
She said "did you just feel the earth move?" - I thought I was good in bed.
But it was just an asteroid.
...they managed to launch CowboyNeal, after all!
"What's everyone so worked up about? So there's a comet -- big deal. It'll burn up in our atmosphere and what's ever left will be no bigger than a chihuahua's head." -HS
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
I for one welcome our new astroid overlords
Come back and try again dear asteroid!
Thank god it was spotted after the fact, or else we would have had another stupid media frenzy that would draw attention away from more important matters, like friggin this, this, or this. Media man, it's like a toy for an ADD child.
I'm reminded of the Red Dwarf episode where Lester plays pool with several planets. You know, one of these days the player is going to sink this shot.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
David, I really don't know how to respond to your post properly,............ mostly cause I didn't read it.
Isn't that closer?
The previous record for closest approach of an asteroid - 108,000km measured from the centre of the Earth - was set in 1994 by another 10m object named 1994 XM1.
I heard the record for the closest approach of an asteroid was already set billions of years ago. Apparantly everything died or some freak catastrophe like that. Doesn't that still hold the world record?
Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, I really doubt that we could stop an asteroid large enough to do a lot of damage. Assuming that to be the case, wouldn't you want to it to be unexpected rather than knowing when it would happen. Would you really want to know the exact date and time of your death?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
These meteorites are simply precursors to a Texas-sized "Global Killer" (I hate that term) asteroid on its way. Smoke 'em if you got 'em!
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
actually it was a small house, mine. thats right I lived in space...or at least I used to.
Since when exactly? Does anyone have any dates? Or is this one of those 'hole in the ozone layer' unquantifiables?
How many VW Beetle size units does it take to get a small-house-size asteroid? :)
The ones that were closer were the ones like the recent one that hit Orissa. This wasn't even the closest one that could do any damage, it was too small to have even survived the atmosphere. That recent one in Wales which was recorded by the skateboarder -- that was about 80,000 kilometers closer.
Sheesh.
Infuriate left and right
In Special Relativity, Earth flies past asteroid!
shooting rocks at us again.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
As usual, I submitted this hours ago, but it didn't get through the moderators : moderation here is a random process.
? id=ns999 94227a n/
Anyway, New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/) and Spaceflight (http://spaceflightnow.com/index.html) both report
that radar data is consistent with methane lakes on Titan:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0310/02tit
Good evening,
I tried to convert "small houses" into "VW Bugs" but my unit conversion calculator app gave me an undefined error. Can anyone give me a pointer?
Thanks!
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
so... that would be like a small house in beverly hills? small japanese apartment? smaller of a "house" in a double-wide trailer park? HOW BIG IS A SMALL HOUSE?
I really miss the days when they just use units like meters, or heck, even feet!
hmm... that came out more flamebaitish than I had wanted, but seriously...
My life in the land of the rising sun.
If this asteroid had hit the Earth, it would have done a great deal of damage and perhaps killed a great many people had it hit a densely populated area.
This illustrates why we need to work on a system to address hazards such as this. Scientists and astronomers have warned for years of the need to be able to defend ourselves, but regrettably nothing substantive has been done about it.
Many people are rightly concerned about spending too much on defense given the current state of the economy. The threat posed by asteroids, however, cannot be ignored. The best way to respond is with a comprehensive missile-defense program.
Some may object, saying that missile defense violates this or that international treaty. However, it's the only way to go. In fact, it wouldn't really cost anything, since we need to build a missile defense shield anyway to protect against attacks from Iran and North Korea. Asteroids are merely another threat that could be neutralized by such a system.
Rank Presidents by th
Are asteroids usually measured in "small house"'s? In the atari game, do they start out the size of 4 small houses?
We have evidence for quite a few asteroids hitting
Earth in the past. WTF is up with headline?
Er-Um-I don't think so. Plenty of Asteroids have struck the Earth, and those are the degenerate case of "closest".
Did you really mean "Closest Asteroid of Significant Size since Hollywood Made Some Movies Recently About Asteroids Hitting the Earth and Wiping Out Humanity Yet Flies Past Earth"?
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Send me research money or the world will end! Do it quick so I can send up Bruce Willis in a shuttle to Save the Baby Seals and all the other earthlings. If you send me enough research money, I'll tell you how to mine killer asteroids for Ni, Fe, Pt, Pd and Dilithium.
Please keep our transactions confidential so we may share in this opportunity to save humanity and get rich.
Obligatory obligatory comment that has nothing to do with the article but seemed funny at the time of writing.
How else would I know when to begin the rabid orgy of drinking, sex, and general debauchery?
I like to think that they'll figure a few dinosaurs did survive and lived in grand buildings as the rulers of all mankind.
I bet there are a few Dinosaurs that would dispute that "Closest"
tag, if they weren't all dead.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Link-O-Rama. .
About 4 or 5 years ago there was a bit of noise around the scientific community about a mysterious very big object being detected around the vicinity of Pluto's orbit. An object travelling on an eliptical orbit around the sun which had been predicted by numerous astronomers trying to explain anomolies in the orbits of the various planets in the solar system. As the object came to its closest point a few years back, a bunch of disinfo was thrown up to distract the public. --Calming bullshit reports on the various 'Learning Channels', plus a bunch of culty nonsense from the 'Planet X' contingent. All horseshit designed to keep the public quiet or confused while the global elite prepared for the approaching calamity, (and for which they seem to think the proper preparation includes building a one-world government, killing a ton of people, and managing the whole affair from underground. Or some Dr. Strangegloves nonsense to that effect. Either way, nonsense stories clouded the issue with almost perfect success. --Including the interestingly sudden reassurances (which I never heard when I was a kid), from governments and government owned media that, "No, No. Rocks are constantly falling into the atmosphere. This is all perfectly normal." --Well sure, stuff is always falling, but there are certain scales of averages which are being ignored here. .
Works like this. .
Basically, every 3600 years we go through a cloud of rocks, and every 360,000 years, that cluster is replenished thanks to said big object, (a ball of hydrogen which never got quite big enough to ignite, but which plays binary to the sun), which passes through the Kuiper belt and knocks new debris down to the Earth's orbital plane. The last year or so of comet stories and such were, I suspect, elements of the old cluster, and now we're beginning to see the first arrivals from the new one.
The pattern expected is that it will be like a rain shower. A few drops here and there as it begins. Then a short pause where everybody half-relaxes. Then the downpour.
Should be interesting, to say the least! --Espeically in conjunction with the dozen or so other massive things going on. So much to do, so little time!
Keep alert, folks! You don't get to experience stuff like this every lifetime!
-FL
Maybe George W can use the asteroid to accelerate his Daddies son of star wars programme.
It's kinda like getting in a bar fight where you're doing all you can to beat this guy up in front of you that insulted your girlfriend while his buddy is sneaking up behind you with a chair. You'll never see either coming until it's too late.
The impact would be equal to 10 million M-80's
How can the asteroid come from _inside_ the Earth's orbit? Was it just orbiting around for centuries unnoticed, or did a piece of earth get loose?
Both scenarios are unlikely.
(First Simpsons Reference Post)
"Let's go burn down the observatory so this will never happen again!"
Yo, Bush! You're so sneaky getting on /. like this to lobby for some more toys built by your buddies! You're so silly.
That for once the giant whooshing sound was not opportunity passing me by.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Just think of all the partying I could have done thinking the world was going to end.
Oh well, gotta go. Work starts at 8...
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Damn you random chance! I'll get you next time.
I would also note that the Indian event also appears to have consisted of at least two pieces (one of which is said to have done minor damage in a different village). I'm guessing that there are more pieces out there (smaller, perhaps, but out there).
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Seriously, it is ultimately a matter of very basic physics. In space especially, it is pretty easy to predict the trajectory of a known object for a great distance into the future. With the velocities and distances involved, a tiny nudge to any object months in advance would mean a trajectory change of hundreds of thousands to millions of miles. A thermonuclear charge at a few months away and no worries, even for a *big* rock. Now if the thing is just days away, that is a totally different story, but we could still possibly do stuff to minimize the damage. For instance, it might be possible to get it to break into chunks, or to shift it to land in the ocean as opposed to on land. This stuff isn't mysterious, its just large scale. I'm not saying the media would be of any use (it is doubtful that we could load up the previously mentioned thermonuke with editors, despite the added punch[ooh]) but all would certainly not be hopeless.
Radius of Earth ~6000km. Distance of closest approach of asteroid 88000 km. (Is that from the surface or center? I'll assume center.) Ratio of distances is approx 1:15, so the ratio of areas is 1:225.
Translation: To a first approximation, we can have about 200 asteroids come this close or closer before one hits us - so it wasn't a particularly close call.
To a second approximation, it gets a bit more complicated. The Earth's gravity deflects asteroids towards the center of the Earth, and so an asteroid that would have missed us if gravity were ignored could hit us. Another way of looking at this is that the 'target' area for hitting the Earth is bigger than the simple geometrical cross-section of the Earth.
How much bigger will depend on the ratio between the Earth's escape velocity (about 11 km/s) and the asteroid's approach speed (highly variable but likely on the order of 30 km/s*.) I'm too lazy to figure out the actual formula, but I'd guess it comes out to a factor of a few. (I.e. we could take perhaps 50 this close or closer before one impacts.)
* Something to think about when watching them fly the spaceship down a crack in the asteroid at the end of "Deep Impact".
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
You were nine minutes too late with your tired joke. Read before posting, folks!
The article says this is not connected to the India meteor. How can this not be related? There were way too many interesting meteor events last weekend.
...
This is very interesting
- September 27 - A meteor hits Eastern India, catching some homes on fire and injuring at least three people. This kind of thing doesn't happen very often.
- September 28 - A post to rec.arts.sf.fandom reported a "rather impressive meteor" with "lots of bits breaking off".
- (the week before) October 1 - Astronomy Picture of the Day showed a spectacular photo of a meteor, reported to be taken "last week" (assumedly relative to the day the picture was posted, which could have been the same Sep 27-28 weekend).
- And now we hear about a fairly large meteor which missed us on the same weekend!
These were probably all fragments of the same meteor. I'd like to hear more information on how they know for sure that these are not related...
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...the Grand Teton Fireball of 1972. This was a meteor/asteroid/rock that grazed the atmosphere over Grand Teton National Park. An 8mm movie was made of the object that was estimated from 5 to several 10's of meters. For more info see http://www.maa.mhn.de/Comet/1972.html
While I appreciate the geek factor of the space program as much as the next guy, I sometimes struggle to understand the value of it. It seems this is great justification. Sometime in the next few hundred years, we'll quite possibly be in trouble with an asteroid, and unless we start playing around in space now we'll never be ready with a solution to stop it.
Let's just hope we have another decade or two to get ready before a big one is going to hit.
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it's about means to detect. With a reasonble timeframe, it's possible. AS it is, it'll be sheer luck if we detect it before impact, and even if we do we've hardly got much more than ICBMs that could be launch-ready in time, trying to take it out head on. We're not going to have X months to build ships and train oil riggers. And the ICBMs, well... depends on the size. Against a "reasonably" sized target they can make a difference. Against a real big rock? Very little. And they'll probably turn one huge impact into a stone rain of outragous proportions, the momentum towards earth would be too great to change.
As for the time of my death, sure. Then I can get to do all the crazy stuff I only could do if I had nothing to live for. Wouldn't be quite as much fun if everybody else was the same, though.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
During the 90's, I remember reading at least three times (two or three years apart, each) that the first flying car had been invented. Different people, different projects (one was just a small aircraft, not an ground/air vehicle), and generally old news trying to recover a sense of wonder with technological advancement that doesn't happen that often again.
What I'm trying to say is that popular science journalism's main "product" is that sense of wonder. Should I be surprised that they'll go to any length to sell the wonder without any actual news behind it?
But then again, I was pretty impressed by the Segway.
Should we call this a near hit, or a near miss? I'm confused little child.
Come on people, use the right units!
Brilliant. That should be modded up funny & informitive.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
OK, who thinks 10meters across is a "SMALL HOUSE"? More like the size of a Van than a small house.
...a small house? If it had impacted, would we see dorothy running away with the ruby slippers and a bubbling voice crying "Oh what a world!!!" ?
Dave Lister
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Pictures and details here:t m
http://www.birtwhi.demon.co.uk/Gallery2003SQ222.h
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Brick Top: You're always gonna have problems moving an asteroid in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut it up into six pieces and pile it all together.
Sol: Would someone mind telling me, who are you?
Brick Top: And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in deep space for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up asteroid will look like curry to a pisshead. You need at least sixteen hundred pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through an asteroid that weighs 10 tons in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked asteroid every minute. Hence the expression, 'as greedy as a pig.'
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Damn asteroid belt debris got in my way! This planetary golf is harder than it sounds!
One asteroid the size of a couch DID NOT pass closely by, but entered the the atmosphere
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
is this real? can someone reallly smart clarify the parent comment? is god about to rain power word: kill on us?
If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else.
"The asteroid, designated 2003 SQ222, came from inside the Earth's orbit and so was only spotted after it had whizzed by."
Fortunately for us, scientists are more worried about negative press than they are by near miss killer asteroids. Not that they would want to raise awareness and get something done about them. I mean, don't want the world too worried about being wiped out. That's bad publicity.
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A house? Well, that thar rock would ha made a real fireball.
And of course, we all know all about these ivory tower eggheads and how they think, even tho we never seen one, or can name one, or have no idea where the nearest ivory tower is.
Hey, God. Mind sending another one of those, and aiming it square at Washington, DC? I'm sure that the majority of the planet would be very grateful to you...
Failing that, I'd accept Redmond, WA. Thanks!
There were other (smaller) asteroids which made closest possible approaches. Such as the one which is known as the 'The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball of Wyoming' in local folklore. More details here...
http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/1972.html
This one missed terra firma by just 58 Km, close enough to create sonic booms, but not close enough to hit the earth.
The blurb states: "...closest approach of a natural object ever recorded..."
This village replies: "Yeah, right."
I thought it was drafty in my house. I guess it was just the asteroid going by.
Mod that one up.
That reminds me of high school final exam grades in England.
The scores went: A, B, C, D, E, N, U
U stood for "unclassifiable", failed in other words
N stood for "near-miss". I remember the arguments over whether or not a "near-miss" was a hit, and therefore a pass.
must be the only person on earth who wished that sucker hit us.
or are you just glad to see me?
"New Scientist reports that an asteroid about the size of a small house passed just 88,000 kilometres from the Earth by on Saturday 27 September - the closest approach of a natural object ever recorded. Geostationary communication satellites circle the Earth 42,000km from the planet's centre.
Although this seems quite close by astronomical standards, it's still not really all that close - when you realize that Geosynchronous orbit is approximately three Earth Diameters out there, then it becomes clear that this non-trivial-but-not-enormous rock missed Earth by more than six Earth diameters. (Still, anything large passing inside the orbit of the Moon is a bit surprising, isn't it?)
Let's face facts though - if we get nailed by a big one, it's just our time to go, and Hollywood silliness notwithstanding, there's nothing we could do about it anyway...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Enough of these wimpy "ooo, that was a close one" asteroid flybys. I want a week-in-advance prediction of complete asteroidal anhillation, so that I may find a female willing to engage in desperation sex and cause me to no longer be a virgin.
Don't forget recent witness reports of cheney building a bunker beneath his residence.
God hates cheney
I, for one, welcome our new homeless Omega037 overlord from space.
If you're looking for humans to devour, could you start with RIAA execs please? They're kind of greasy to start with so I would suggest trying to make fries from them first.
Klendathu has started their attack. Need more
info? Contact NASA.
What good is any of the existing preparatory investagation into NEOs (near-earth objects) if the big ones are only noticed after the fact? If this one had been only a little larger, (say 40 meters) then it could have done significant damage before it was registered by satellites or on-ground systems.
every stain tells a story
In a NASA interview with the asteroid, it appears that the NEO left Earth Orbit because it was feeling "put upon" by people teasing it over its size.
"They would tease me, saying 'when you sit around the house you must really sit around the house!" Said the dejected interplanetary object.
Other insults hurled at the asteroid included comments disparaging it's pock-marked face and it's less than wholesome physique. The asteroid is reported to be on its way back to the asteroid belt to be amongst its own kind.
"Look, I don't have to take that!" retorted the object, "If those nasty little Earth-scum won't play nice I'll just go home!"
The anti-asteroid hazing tactic is a newly developed technology from the JPL that promises to protect the Earth from Asteroid impacts. Expert Sven Goddard warns that such hazing tactics may not work on larger asteroids. "Larger Asteroids may not be intimidated by the Earth's insults and may strike the Earth harder for them," said Dr. Goddard, "This sets a dangerous precedent for the Earth's relationship with its celestial classmates."
Dr. Goddard would like to see the Earth "play nice" with all the other celestial bodies, but admits that, "the Earth has a rep to protect" and that it may not always be possible to be "nice" to visiting Asteroids also known as the "Geeks of the Solar System."
[signature]
And people have been questioning the need for things like NASA... Granted, what is really needed is better devolpment in sky charting, and not just charting of the stars and such, but a general improvment in being able to simply track/detect things within our own solarsytem. I think NASA should focus alot more on this, and not just suplying help/funding, but in developing technology; and yes, I'm sure they they do, but they should make it more publicly known. Then I think they would have a better chance come 'budget reform time' in Congress.
if said 'big object' is a 'ball of hydrogen which never got quite big enough to ignite' it would be called a brown dwarf (that is what brown dwarfs are!) and as big as jupiter (same size larger mass, denser etc)
2 000/00-206.html
basic facts
and we would have seen it by now!!!
OK
remember geeks, google is your friend!!
see also
http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/news/releases/
and
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/1995/48/
You can take this tenth planet and stick it where the sun don't shine.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
80,000 km is not the closest. How about the Grand Teton Meteor of 1972? This one was seen in the US and Canada as a bright daylight fireball. It was very close - about 50 km - but did not hit. Instead, it burned through the atmosphere and went off back into space.
Then there's this one, which is believed to be a meteor that was put into Earth orbit on the first pass, then re-entered 100 minutes later after orbiting the Earth once.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
The asteroid, (...) came from inside the Earth's orbit and so was only spotted after it had whizzed by.
I wonder, why everyone expects the judgement will come at night?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Saturday 27 September - the closest approach of a natural object ever recorded
I assume astroids that actully HIT the planet are further away than the ones that don't?
Learn something new.
Let's keep in mind that such an asteroid striking the atmosphere would do very little damage other than a spectacular lightshow. This kind of thing happens all the time; don't let the recent media hype over the recent asteroid probabilities (which were all well under the background probability anyway!) lead you astray. Without comprehensive programs, it's inevitable that the geometry of orbital mechanics means we'll tend to find these near-misses after, not before they hit, anyway.
It's kind of strange to see the media labeling this as the nearest miss so far. When, uh, lots of asteroids, huge, big, medium-sized, small, and dust-sized have hit in the past.
wtf ? They only look for asteroids coming from the outer space ?
Astronomer to lab assistant: "Hmm; it's too close to call. Hand me those calipers, willya?" ;)
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
Few weeks ago there was a topic that discussed the naming of space objects, and I suggested naming the next asteroid that comes near earth "M$ Asteriod XP - XPerience the impact". Well, the space brick didn't hit us, so Microsoft seems to have messed it up again....
".Sig Stealer" was here
I think the above poster, and much of slashdot gets too much astronomical knowledge from watching star trek. Despite what you may see on TV, space is incredibly empty, even inside the galactic disk. The chance of even finding an extrasolar asteroid, not to mention hitting one is beyond computing. Asteroids are left over remmnants that never quite made it to planet size. Because of this, we will not be menaced by any new asteroids unless we somehow hit another star system, and at that point asteroids will be the least of our troubles. Asteroids do not merely wander away from the systems were they were formed, so foretunately we need not worry about a sudden rise in intersteller rocks. The galactic disk looks solid, simply because the comcentration of stars is so much higher in comparison to our local neighberhood. Unforetunately, this same emptyness also means we will never be able to fly through those lovely nebulae we see on TV. If we did ever venture to, say, the Crab Nebulae we wouldnt really notice any difference unless we looked through a powerful telescope, and then you would notice a slight attenuation of the light.
wells, missa is staking up on cans of food, gasoline, magnets, copperwire, tools, solarpanels, etc. good thing my house is like 50 meter under water.
"yeah, see guys wasn't a joke!"
let that meteorite come!
This kind of event seems to be happening more often lately. I think it's just reported more often.
Even knowing than I can't help but feeling a bit uneasy. What about people thinking we are close to the "Deep Impact" or "Armageddon" movie ?
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
We must prevent this from ever happening again, rage the observatory!!
"He estimates the asteroid measured less than 10 metres. This is too small to have posed a danger to Earth, although it would have made a spectacular fireball had it entered the atmosphere."
That surprices me. Is the atmosphere so good a shield that it would have broken THAT into dust and gases ?
Just imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these...
Studying them (from a safe distance) would be way more cool than, for example, watching the Perseids (too predictable in timing and too unstable, for they fade away to a blue screen err..sky).
Also, I wonder if you could run NetBSD on them.
Not to forget, if they come really close there will be great need for tweaking them, too. (how's that for geekiness?)
And if they do hit us, well, that will be the most 'massive' DDoS attack in history...
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
The Sun (and solar system) last crossed the plane of the Galaxy 2 million years ago and we are currently in the thick of the particulate dust which is held near the plane.
However, the sun is presently located about 50 light-years above the central plane of the galaxy and is currently moving away from the plane of the Milky Way at 7km a second. It is estimated that it will take 14 million years for the gravitational pull of the Galaxy to stop our outward motion and begin to bring us back in.
Unless the Solar system is about to dissipate 7km/second worth of velocity and do an about face and the travel at 100 times the speed of light back to the plane, we won't be back there any time soon.
I think what you were trying to describe is the Earth's path through the Solar system. We will be passing back through the path of the ecliptic which is in effect the 'plane' of the Solar system where the majority of small hard rock type objects reside.
This is, of course, at the system level of motion rather than the galactic level.
We are here:-
Approx 28,000ly from galaxy centre on the 'Orion' arm.
Approx 50ly from mean plane of galaxy
Approx speed relative to galaxy centre: 200km a second.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
The parent makes a valid point. The language's a bit rough around the edges, but it speaks the truth.
I've seen that movie too.
Bruce Willis dies.
Thanks a LOT! Next thing, you'lll tell me that Ben Affleck lives!
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Time to get MAME fired up and get up to speed on how to tackle Asteroids, remembering the potential hazard of hyperspacing into one.
Trailer parks make up a very small percentage of the surface of Oklahoma. However, tornadoes manage to hit them very frequently. Perhaps meteorites hitting humans is a bit like tornadoes hitting trailer parks - humans exhibit some strange magnetism for meteorites...
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Um, we've been hit by asteroids before. I mean, actually hit. Surely that's closer than a near earth object.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
When an asteroid enters the Earth atmosphere, it comes known as Happy Fun Ball.
So now we know how they raised the $20 million or so to launch nigeria's first satellite this week! Spam clearly works :-)
the barregger meteor crater was done by about a 10 meter rock
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
I assume (based on this article) that we've been watching the skies for 100 years, and that this has been the closest pass in that time. That means that any give year we have a 1 in 25,000,000 chance of an impact.
Based on this simple history it's apparent that there have been 2 impacts of similarly sized asteroids in the past 500 years. Either A) my impact probability is off by 5 orders of magnitude or B) this has been a quiet century for near-misses. That kind of statistical variation is unlikely, so what's wrong with my numbers?
Assuming that we've only been able to accurately record near-misses for 20 years drops my probability of impact to 1 in 5 million. Based on that answer there should have been 1/10000th of an impact in the past 500 years. My answer is still off by 4 orders of magnitude. Assuming independent asteroids of 1m volume I go down to 1 order of magnitude error.
I'm going to keep thinking about it, but I have to do a problem set now. I'm interested if anyone sees a flaw in my logic or math, or simply has comments.
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
}
It would have been just a great show!
You'd think New Scientist would know better....
Clear, Dark Skies
I would say that this one was about 88,000 KM further out than the closest and asteroid has come to earth...
Tornadoes travel over the surface. Most of the time, they only topple trees, cut power and scare drivers.
Trailer parks are very vulnerable in that the structural strength of a mobile home is low. Given that most tornadoes are weak, a good percentage of them are of such a strength that a solid house would survive, while a mobile home would be devastated.
.. the moon is 384,500km away. This asteroid was one-quarter that distance. I would call that close, but hardly a near miss.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
88,000 kilometers = 54,680.6649 miles
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
Well... it could've been on FOX anyway.
Just throw in the diameter of the earth, and you can do a quick estimate of the relative closeness in your head.
What does the earth look like from geosynchronous orbit?
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
Im really getting sick of the "its just a theory" disformation that's been floating around. Theory is the end of the scientific method. Thanks to the nutty creationists we now have this "its just a thoery, not true!!" meme to deal with.
If it was the size of a small house it was NOT an asteroid. An asteroid needs to be 1 kilometer. If it is under 1 kilometer it is a meteoroid.
/ answer.ph p.id=22&cat=solarsystem
from:
http://hubblesite.org/reference_desk/faq
Most of us probably have seen meteors or shooting stars. A meteor is the flash of light that we see in the night sky when a small chunk of interplanetary debris burns up as it passes through our atmosphere. "Meteor" refers to the flash of light caused by the debris, not the debris itself.
Asteroids are generally larger chunks of rock that come from the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
I like traffic lights
"New Scientist reports that an asteroid about the size of a small house...
... landed on the wicked witch in the middle of a ditch, ... the wicked witch.
which was not a healthy sit-
uation for
...knowing that we'll only see a life-threatening object in the Earth's vicinity only AFTER IT PASSES. What's next, "Extra, Extra, read all about it: Armageddon on Earth!"? Sure, but what's the price of a newspaper going to be after a global killer?
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Planet X is an proposed tenth planet with an orbital period of less than 1000 years. When Pluto was discovered, astronomers thought that was the planet that was responsible for Uranus' orbital perterbation. Then in the 70's and 80's Uranus' orbit didn't quite sync with predictions that accounted for Pluto. The discrepancy suggested that there may be yet another object lurking in the Kuiper belt.
In any event, the the two hypothesis are addressing different issues. A good write up can be found here.
There's little we can do. Last week we hear about two indian villages being hit with meteorites, we've been having inexplicable power failures and now this?
What is it going to take to get people to realize the severity of the situtation? The only reason this info is being kept from the mainstream is that our lords and corporate masters don't want an economic downturn. They are well aware of this situation and have made plans. They will still be here after the disaster. Is that what you really want? Do you want that lot to rebuild civilzation with what's left of us as slaves? Come on folks! It's time to revolt!
Un-news
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
...after all, it's only as big as a house.
Van Damme? *ducks*
One of those damn things is going to actually have to hit the earth. That is the only way the governments of the planet will sit up and take notice. Hopefully it won't destroy all life on Earth in the process...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
most politicians and scientists still do not take this issue seriously enough. It won't matter much when the one we didn't spot, the one the size of a city, crashes into the earth and kills us all. WE NEED TO ENSURE OUR SURVIVAL BY POPULATING SPACE, BE IT THE MOON, STATIONS, OR ELSEWHERE. ALL ELSE IS MOOT IF ONE OF THESE THINGS HITS US. /still, the world doesn't appear to give a damn.
I thought that astronomers were upset about asteroid panic that these meaningless announcements stir up. Glad to see /. is still doing its part in spreading the hysteria.
an ill wind that blows no good
The rock/bolide was captured in broad daylight as it aerobraked over the Tetons, and then continued on in space.
That is somewhat closer than 88k klicks.
Just like in Starship Troopers. I knew it.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
Interesting!
I don't know quite enough about astronomy to properly suggest anything with authority. I would, however, be cautious before walking away based on even very good armchair logic.
For instance, the astronomers who discovered odd behavior in Kuiper Belt objects and who suggested that perhaps a large object might be responsible were not examining and publishing 25 years ago, but rather only a very few years ago. Those looking at the problem didn't strike me as being conspiracy twits, and the various orthodox science-oriented media outlets seemed to take them seriously. --Which while, of course, prooves nothing in and of itself, does lead me to think that such researchers might have recognized your point through the course of their studies but chose to continue regardless.
Further, I also suspect that such an object, were it to exist, may very well have been detected. There's no reason, though, why the public would have been informed. NASA's silly behavior with SOHO is certainly evidence enough of their willingness to hide data when it applies to issues of comets!
Also, keep in mind, that were such an object to pop up in a more public scanning of the heavens, I don't think it would jump out quite so instantly. Though large, it would still be little more than a tiny dot among millions of other tiny, noisy dots. And once located, would have to be confirmed and understood for what it was. This is long an arduous work, particularly when one is not looking in the immediate neighborhood. We're still finding new moons around the big planets, and these are objects which are within the range of visible light. I would be very cautious before boldly announcing that we know all there is to know about our solar system!
Still, it is an interesting point you raise!
-FL
Further, we have recorded a bunch of these things each year (of that size), including several that have broken apart, hit the Earth, and been collected.
frob
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
You're right, the meteoroid you mention was closer than the asteroid the article mentions. Sheesh!
....hm..... (whistling happily)
damn damn DAMN!
When the damage from large rocks is estimated, do they take into account the relatively velocities of the object vs. the Earth? i would think that a head-on collision would be far more damaging than one in which the rock is "catching up from behind" in our orbit.
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
To paraphrase Trolling4Dollars, I'll give mikerich a virtual "+3, Damn Interesting" in hopes it will spark a favorable trend.
I'll also give him a "+1, you're now on my friends list," despite the fact that no one will care.
;)
Mom says my
Don't we get hit by metores everyday?
I'd consider that closer.
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
(some moderator has no sense of humor... It started with an anon coward's '0' rating, and they modded it "overrated" to -1. I'd rate it as +1 Funny.)
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
"The asteroid, designated 2003 SQ222, came from inside the Earth's orbit and so was only spotted after it had whizzed by."
Anyone care to explain to a non-astronomer (non-astro physicist?) like me, why being "inside Earth's orbit" makes an asteroid harder to detect?
I can destroy any asteroid with 50cents
I've got a pocket full of quarters and I'm headed to the arcade. I don't make alot of money, but I'm taking everything I've made. Ohh wait thats the wrong one. Call Buckner and Garcia for that Asteroids song
Why do so many asteroids have to fly near us in order to whiz?
Siberia
wasn't an asteroid, it was lacking a crater and asteroid remains.
Ever notice that a geek will say something will happen "soon" and mean "in the next 50 million years", then turn around and complaign that something else is "taking forever" when they mean "3-400 milliseconds"?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Having a planet smash into them would have stuffed up their real estate values, I'm thinking.
Actually, the earth runs into a bit more solar system "junk" between 12 AM and 12 PM (local time). Consider the "after midnight" (AM) time where you are as being on the front windshield, and the "after noon" (PM) time as being on the back window (of a car)
At midnight, you are on the "back side" of the earth moving at a tangent to the earth's orbit, then moving sun-ward on the "front side" of the earth, until you slip around the back of the orbital direction in the afternoon.
Or was this a "millenial" type question, rather than an "astronomical" one. In that case -- cuz yur' a'sleepin', you slacker!
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
Well, the point of the whole theory is that there is unaccounted for wobble, and the reason the Nemesis and similar theories were proposed were in efforts to explain this phenomenon.
-FL
Last year, when there was a particularly large object showing up on the public internet SOHO data streem, NASA pulled that old movie trick, of killing the live feed, and running in its place an old feed from a month or so earlier, but with falsified date stamps.
Nit-picky astronomy geeks, being what geeks are, caught it.
This was the worst of the offenses. Typically, these days, when comet activity is particularly hot, NASA just kills the feed altogether and blames it on technical difficulty.
Do some Googling. This story and the images in question should still be available.
-FL