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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.
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.
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.
"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 \.
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?
actually it was a small house, mine. thats right I lived in space...or at least I used to.
How many VW Beetle size units does it take to get a small-house-size asteroid? :)
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.
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"?
Dear Rich Friend:
I am a research scientist in Nigeria. I have access to important information that will save the world, but need seed money to bring my theories to the scientific world.
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.
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.
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.
Damn you random chance! I'll get you next time.
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
But that was only the the size of a sofa and three cushions, and didn't actually touch ground.
But in the vein of the orgiastic frenzy, they'll all be busy with the little boys.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
come on! its nothing more than the great cosmic Dubya reacting to all the WMD's we are hiding on this planet, who can blame the great cosmic Dubya! He just wants to liberate us with his loving hand of death! free me! free me!
...
in other news
Space Is Big - Douglas Adams
it aint gunna pour. space is big. jupiter's huge gravity eats most of the debris that comes in way before our pitiful little planet gets a chance to tug on anything.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Hollywood would have you believe that any car that has all of its wheels leave the ground blows up while in midair.
This tends to make me distrust Hollywood as a source of physical phenomenon.
Maybe it's just me?
KFG
Proved? On TV?!? Wow! Must be like those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...
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()!