City-Sized Asteroid to Pass Earth This Fall

FiniteLoop sends a collection of links about a city-sized asteroid named Toutatis which will approach - but miss - Earth this September. MSNBC also has a story, and JPL and the Near Earth Object program have more information.

Comments

City sized?

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

Would it have been that hard to find a moderately well known city to use for the comparison? Paris sized? Or Rose Bud, Arkansas sized?

Not trolling...just asking :-)

Re:City sized?

[metlin]

Its quite unlikely to be as big as Paris or any other bigger city - the article clearly states its the size of a *small* city.

On Sept. 29, 2004 an asteroid the size of a small city will make the closest known pass of such a very large space rock anytime this century.

The article also says that -

Toutatis is about 2.9 miles long and 1.5 miles wide (4.6 by 2.4 kilometers).

Therefore, I think a small town would rather be more appropriate than a small city. Most cities today cover atleast tens of miles, if not hundreds. But then again, its relative.

What scares me is the following line from the site -

Researchers can't predict far enough into the future to rule out Toutatis ever slamming into Earth, so it is listed officially as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. NASA says it won't hit for at least the next six centuries.

Six centuries is an awfully short time, and maybe encouraging space programs and building stations outside of Earth is probably a good idea.

Re:City sized?

[jonman_d]

What scares me is the following line from the site...[snip]
Six centuries is an awfully short time...

You've got to figure that if we can, with today's technology, figure out its path for the next 600 years, then by that time has elapsed, we'll probably be able to figure out its path for at least 1000 years. Even if we don't advance that far, 600 years is still plenty of time to figure out a plan for saving the planet (although something tells me that, the way the human race/governments work, we'll wind up waiting until the last 20 years, anyhow).

Re:City sized?

[metlin]

Ofcourse! Actually, you are quite right in the last count.

Figuring out the path is not the issue, doing something about it is. Unfortunately, even if the space organizations did figure out (I do not know if they have already figured this out or not, yet), there is no guarantee that they will make it public for a while.

Nothing better to stir up those religious zealots saying that in FooBar years the world is going to come to an end. And even the saner public would most certainly be quite paranoid if such a prediction were to come to pass.

That is what makes it far worse than actually knowing about it - a large segment of the population may still remain ignorant and oblivious to this. And given the brilliant red-tape that exists in most government agencies, I really wonder if we would be doing anything about it (except, ofcourse, fund a bunch of religious institutions and proclaim that some voice in the sky is going to save us all).

Re:City sized?

[kmankmankman2001]

Hey, it could have been much worse. Just be thankful it isn't Oprah-sized.

Re:City sized?

[squiggleslash]

the article clearly states its the size of a *small* city.

Ok, but what's that in Volkswagens? ;-)

Re:City sized?

[Saeger]

Six centuries is an awfully short time

Hahahahahah! 600 years? Not a lot of time? ... AhhhhHahahhahaahah!!!

I've got your short-term & long-term right here.

--

Re:City sized?

[dustmite]

If it's heading straight for Earth, you have to deflect it enough to get past the full radius of Earth. If it's heading away from Earth on the previous cycle, you only need to deflect it by a *tiny* amount, and that tiny amount will result in it passing a huge distance from Earth on the next time round. This is simply because the distance travelled after deflection is applied is so much greater, i.e. a 0.1 degree deflection applied to the full length of an entire orbital cycle (sin(0.1) * DISTANCE) (that value needs to be larger than EARTHRADIUS, so the larger DISTANCE is the better). If it's already headed straight for earth, you have perhaps only a tiny fraction of DISTANCE.

Also if you do it on the previous cycle and mess up, you still have more chances. If you do it when it's headed straight for Earth already, you only get one chance to do it right.

Another factor is if you accidentally cause the asteroid to break up, a huge part of it may still hit Earth if it's headed for Earth. That risk is reduced or removed if it's heading away from Earth.

It's coming right for us!

[DrugCheese]

Would they tell us if it was going to hit? Why wouldn't they? Why would they?

Re:It's coming right for us!

[cexshun]

Hmmm. An interesting question. However, with all the civilian observatories out there with university astrophyisists(sp?), one would imagine the information would be leaked if it was going to hit. You know there's be some hippy assistant to a university astronomer saying, "The good people of Earth deserve to know!" And, with all this publicity, I'd say every telescope in the world is trained in on it right now. And, even if they kept it quiet, it'd be hard to miss something this size and proximity to Earth, even by an amateur astronomer.

Re:It's coming right for us!

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Yes, exactly, why would they (the idiosyncratic "them")?

Depending on the severity of the strike, the response will always be governed by Elitist Cataclysmic Logic:

SAVE US FIRST AND SCREW EVERYBODY ELSE.

Any strike from an object detected by telescopes will be particulary severe ... you can depend upon at least a 10MT explosion in the lower atmosphere. But with objects sized like Toutatis, the strike will be a groundripper in the 100s of MTs.

Such an event means that stock portfolios are likely to tank.

I mean, seriously, stop laughing for a moment and think it through. The globalist elite don't stand by and let their wealth be decimated; if something even 10% of the size of Toutatis were coming, the effect upon the people of Earth would be fierce. People's involvement in the economic and social structure would severely compromise the highly artificial existence of the authority of the wealthy.

Since real-world catastrophes are likely to adversely affect the parasitical existence of the global elite, then with something as large as Toutatis I can only expect attempts at a news blackout (and a disinformation campaign, which is even more effective) for a while until the point is moot (i.e. the thing is so close that even small, un-confiscated telescopes and binoculars can see it, or it hits).

To use a for-example, let's say Toutatis is coming to hit us. The elite would hear about it pretty early, since the larger scopes are run by institutions and academic elites, and those are strongly connected to "them". Since Toutatis would likely strike ocean and cause thousands of billions of dollars in damage from the tidal waves, the elite will immediately put a lock on the knowledge.

To do so, the acacdemics (certainly notorious for eruptions of dissent) would have to be controlled and discredited. The major scopes in the world will be put under lock and key simply by contacting other government entities. In fact, the act of "let's turn our scopes upon Toutatis to track it to confirm the rumor" would be the plain-view method of justifying this takeover. Various government and elite agents will show up and simply use their authority to put a lock on the data.

Concurrent with the start of this control campaign, will be the disinformation one. False data will be generated by several sites through their controlling agents, to confuse the correct data from other sites. It will also serve to counter sites that escape control, like from the actions of some nutbag academic who thinks he's serving the "greater good" by collecting and reporting the correct data.

And with the disinformation campaign, the issue of interal dissenters will also be addressed. More people producing conflicting data is great for that, but the issue gets even more clouded when agents step forward and confess to the fraud. With enough of this kind of thing, the public won't know what to think ... which is the entire point, since a confused and uncertain public tends to not act at all.

After that, things get more militant. Smaller scopes will get into the game, and by then their naivete will get the better of them, letting the police, military and intelligence services get into the act (purely on orders, and we all know how much injustice happens on the basis of "I have my orders") by visiting and confiscating their scopes by one means or another. The equipment can be taken or broken; the operators can be arrested; and the operator can be enlisted in "confirmation efforts" which would just be an attempt to keep them quiet by controlling their output data.

Well, this kind of thing can bubble along quite merrily for ... months. Perhaps a year. And faced with armageddon, months of notice can make all the difference for the survival of the elite. Underground bunkers can be readied; resources can be swallowed up into them at large rates (paid for with money that

We should be safe...

[solarlux]

The asteroid will only psas within a distance equal to 4x that of the Earth to the moon...

But what are the odds it could hit another asteroid to knock it off its current path and onto a Earth-bound trajectory?

Re:We should be safe...

[nil5]

there are no odds, since what you are asking is not a measurable function. basically the only source of uncertainty would be some cataclysmic event that nobody knows about anyway, and thus there's now way of knowing how "often" such an even would happen. Essentially it is probability-1.0 that it will miss. That is, there is no uncertainty and no odds. The trajectory of an object in space is deterministic. What would make it random? Randomness only occurs when there are uncertainties. Assuming that you know all the nearby gravitational sources, solar wind, etc. then you can darn well predict exactly where the adsteroid is going. The solar wind can probably contribute to uncertainty, since we don't know exactly its strength at all points in space, but then again its effect on the asteroid is probably negligible since it already has so much momentum.

This is something people need to realize. Calculating odds is really just masturbation with numbers.

Seem familiar.. Did they run out of names?

[douthat]

We've seen Toutatis before:

1989, 1992, 2004

http://www.iki.rssi.ru/solar/eng/toutatis.htm

Oh! it looks like this headline will come every four years... just enough time for people to forget :)

Check it out

Gotta keep your eye on the ball, son!

[Fantastic Lad]

Problem is, Upper Management knows there's a problem, but since they don't like it when people panic and stop attending their local salt-mines, they make a point of keeping events like this at a very low profile.

I imagine it will be more difficult to do this as things continue to heat up.

-FL

Re:Religion?

[metlin]

:) That brought a smile to my face. And to answer your question, well not too much!

However, it is quite funny that my comment was merely an observation of how eschatological religions would react to a situation like this, and the fact that it modded down once again proves that religious zealots abound this place.

It is the truth, religions and religious zealots would proclaim something or the other and cause mass uprisings, and that is probably one good reason why even if the space agencies knew about such a thing, they should not let it out.

And the last statement was merely an observation - with the current administration being right-wing conservative, and the religious climate in the rest of the world, no matter what comes to pass, people will use "faith" as an excuse and throw money at religious godheads and godmen.

I do not see any nation (well, maybe with the exception of China) where people will rather not spend money on religion than on real solutions - that is what pisses me off. If half the faith and the funds were directed towards legitimate purposes, it would atleast make the world a better place.

Re:Cheap new ISS....

[dsanfte]

Do you have any idea how much energy would be required to steer/stop an object of that size? It would be unimaginable.

Re:Religion?

[metlin]

My post talked about a situation if an asteroid were to be headed for Earth, what's likely to happen?

It was quite pertinent in discussing how inaction might be a consequence and a probable reason for why it maybe so.

It was perfectly on topic, unless you look at it from the perspective of an offended believer.

Neither did I mention any particular religion, nor any religious beliefs - I merely highlighted a particular reaction of eschatologist religions.

Its not flamebait unless you really think that my judgement of people and religions somehow does not fit in with the reactions in the real world, which again becomes judgemental and quite untrue, given the way religions work.

Target practice!

[Hogbert]

One of these near-miss asteroids _should_ be used for real life evaluation of asteroid nudging.

1) Plan beforehands, reserve ammunition
2) *kapow*
3) Analyze and learn.

A stone like this would provide excellent material for evaluating different methods; is it better to nuke the stone, mount a rocket or do something else.

Hogbert