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."

Comments

That Explains It.

[TPIRman]

I thought I felt something.

Re:That Explains It.

[Zardus]

As nice as it would be to know when our doom will come, I don't think it'll help us much. Bruce Willis isn't the badass asteroid-smacking guy he once was, unfortunately.

Re:That Explains It.

[Bunji X]

It is too big to be a space station.

*twitch*

[Faust7]

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.

Re:*twitch*

[phraktyl]

Not for me you don't! My first thought was:

Feh.

Re:*twitch*

[hackwrench]

Obvious conclusion: The sun is trying to kill us. The sun is hiding weapons of mass destruction. We must destroy the sun!

Damn

[TLouden]

should have got my giant shotgun out to try and shoot it. Next time.

She said...

[BladeMelbourne]

She said "did you just feel the earth move?" - I thought I was good in bed.

But it was just an asteroid.

Big Deal

[dnahelix]

"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

closest asteroid ever?

[ee_moss]

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?

homeless now

[Omega037]

actually it was a small house, mine. thats right I lived in space...or at least I used to.

Closest Asteroid Yet Flies Past Earth?

[RevMike]

Closest Asteroid Yet Flies Past Earth

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"?

The Sky Is Falling!

[toxic666]

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.

Re:The Sky Is Falling!

[EverDense]

Dear Rich Friend:
...

Dear Sir,

I've seen that movie too.
Bruce Willis dies.
Here is $500 to make it happen.

Yes

[arcite]

How else would I know when to begin the rabid orgy of drinking, sex, and general debauchery?

Re:Yes

[Sgt_Jake]

How else would I know when to begin the rabid orgy of drinking, sex, and general debauchery?

...college.

What about Museums?

[RevMike]

When an asteroid does strike the earth and wipes us all out, and some future intelligent creature fills our niche, what will they think when they excavate our natural history museums and find dinosaur bones?

I like to think that they'll figure a few dinosaurs did survive and lived in grand buildings as the rulers of all mankind.

Re:What about Museums?

[Spackler]

I, for one, welcome our new Dinosaur overlords.

Hell.

[teamhasnoi]

I finally have a good reason to have pooed myself, and nothing on board.

Damn you random chance! I'll get you next time.

....IF THERE IS A NEXT TIME!??!?!?!!!!???

Asteroid disposal, Guy Ritchie style

[peacefinder]

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.'

Re:Closest, hah!

[tarquin_fim_bim]

But that was only the the size of a sofa and three cushions, and didn't actually touch ground.

Re:Really?

[kfg]

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

What about multiple asteroids?

[mikiN]

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...