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Asteroid Flies Under the Radar, Literally
mrn121 writes "Space.com is reporting that a 16-foot wide asteriod has passed the Earth in a phenomenally close call. The Asteroid, named 2004 YD5, passed just below the 22,300 mile range where geostationary satellites sit. What makes the incident most interesting is that the asteriod was not seen until after it passed the Earth, due to the well-known Cosmic Blind Spot caused by the Sun."
The asteroids that are large enough to do damage can be seen far away enough that the cosmic blind spot is irrelevant. The article mentions a 2.9 mile wide asteroid (which would quickly wipe out all life on the planet if it hit) which scientists have known about for years. It won't come anywhere close.
At the moment, we have no defense against a planet-killing asteroid, but the European Space Agency is studying the issue, and NASA's Deep Impact project is also working on it.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Sounds like we need to send an exploratory force out towards the sun to find out who the bastards are! Maybe they're on venus or mercury or somethin.
Oh wait. We don't _have_ an exploratory force. Oh well, guess we'll just have to be sitting ducks.
Or hope this was just a freak coincidence.
Sounds like a plot for a new movie...
I'd rather not see it coming.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
it could have taken out a satellite by chance
_+_+__+_+_+_+_+_+_+++
when i moo u moo - just like that
this probobly happens on a regular basis, nothing to get worked up about fellow geeks....now when the same thing happens with a 16 mile wide asteroid...that will be big news....
-EL
Somehow I doubt a 16-foot asteroid would obliterate the earth. Your car, yes. But the earth...
My God, we're doomed! I mean, if an asteroid too small to hit the surface can go undetected, how will we blast it out of the sky with our Planetary Orbital Defense Network?
Does anyone know if an asteroid of this size could make landfall if made of the proper materials. Such as nickle, lead or other make up?
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
While that does kind of suck that we had no idea of it before it passed "close" by, one has to ask, does it matter if we see it coming or not?
If an asteroid does head for us, will it matter if we see it coming or not? Or will the grandiose idea presented in "Armageddon" be employed (despite being cool as hell.)
Personally, i'd rather be blindsided by a sixteen-wheeler, than sit by and see it head towards me for hours/days/weeks.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
If the Earth was going to be devastated tomorrow and the chances of me and mine surviving were next to zero then I'd rather spend the time I had left doing something important to me than going to work.
And, no by "something important to me" I don't mean playing EverQuest.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The diameter of the earth is about 8,000 miles, so take the globe on your desk (you have one, right?) and imagine an object a little less than 3 diameters away...
Four small groups of dedicated astronomers in Arizona and California, totaling fewer than the number of employees at an average fast-food restaurant and using mostly off-the-shelf equipment for their telescopes, have been mapping the heavens and steadily adding to the number of known near-Earth objects. The article from TIME is here
Something more dedicated to this would make everyone feel better probably
in addition to most likely burning up before it ever got close, such a small asteroid may destroy a small neiborhood, max. Sure, it would have been a tragity, but nothing more devestating that, say, an airline crash. (Minus the death of the passengers, of course)
If something was coming our way, somebody should know about it, imagine if something hit and one of those nuclear powers mistook it as a first strike? I would perfer some notice that asteroids are coming that close. BTW: The same story was rejected from /. around 3PM EST.
Heck, I've seen BOULDERS bigger than that (if you ever visit Central Oregon, the High Desert Museum has one about that size sitting on top of a car- it's pumice obviously). That ain't no asteroid, that's a meteor.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Church: "Give us your money and listen to us or you BURN IN HELL!"
DOE: "Give us your money etc or YOU'LL RUN OUT OF GAS!"
NASA: "Give us your money or YOU'LL GET KILLED BY AN ASTEROID!"
Engineering is the art of compromise.
So how did "Stan" notice?
Le français vous intéresse?
Here's something we know will come and that has a destructive potential far greater than anything in our arsenals. It would foster global cooperation since all nations are potential targets, and it wouldn't create an arms race. An asteroid shield seems like a better way to spend all those money that goes into missile shield defense.
It would probably burn up so even your car is safe. On a related note does insurance normally cover asteroid impacts?
About how many Volkswagen Beetles is that?
Better prep Bruce Willis and Ben Afflec for docking on the astroid... (shameless Armegeddon refrence)
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
See?
Stealth Asteroids....
I'm not worried though.
I have my teeny triangular space ship, and I'll destroy it before it becomes a problem....
RoseColor red={0, 0xffff, 0x0000, 0x0000};VioletColour blue={0, 0x0000, 0x0000, 0xffff};find / -name *mybase*|chown you
But the thing is, if they saw it coming there are measures they could take to prevent it from hitting the earth.
Le français vous intéresse?
The opposite of "literal" is "figurative" and "fly under the radar" seems to have been used in a figurative, not literal sense.
The blind spot that prevented us from seeing the asteroid appears to be a blind spot in the literal sense -- meaning that it prevented us from seeing the rock with optical telescopes, or with our own eyes. I do not believe that the article says that radar was trained on the area, or that the blind spot interfered with said radar.
Additionally, if I read the article correctly, the rock did not enter the atmosphere. For an item to literally fly under the radar, it typically has to be well into the atmosphere.
Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong and this truly flew under radar literally.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
End of the world chart in true scientific fashion - a website dedicated to tracking asteroid collision paths - a 'solution' euphamistically means 'striking the earth' http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/crt.htm#news
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
According to the article, "the object, now named 2002 EM7, was probably between 40 and 80 meters (130-260 feet) in diameter" and was capable of flattening a whole city.
Sneaking is useless, Zim, I'll reveal you to the world.
Just imagine those alien experiments... mwahahaha...
Yours truly,
Dib.
Just to correct something...
Asteroid:
Any of numerous small celestial bodies that revolve around the sun, with orbits lying chiefly between Mars and Jupiter and characteristic diameters between a few and several hundred kilometers. Also called minor planet, planetoid.
I.E. still in space and orbiting.
Meteor:
A bright trail or streak that appears in the sky when a meteoroid is heated to incandescence by friction with the earth's atmosphere. Also called falling star, meteor burst, shooting star.
I.E. that which is shooting through the atmosphere, heating it and itself up in the process due to friction.
Meteoroid:
A solid body, moving in space, that is smaller than an asteroid and at least as large as a speck of dust.
I.E. still in space, not necessarily orbiting, smaller than an Asteroid. I think you meant this one.
Meteorite:
A stony or metallic mass of matter that has fallen to the earth's surface from outer space.
I.E. Fallen onto the Earth. It's what you may find if you're either lucky, or very observant.
So just to conclude.. this is indeed a Meteoroid, as it's not big enough to actually be an Asteroid. But it's more fun to say, and less confusing to the masses - especially the Nintendo owners out there.
Is that why there are so many fires in the ghettos?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'm terribly sorry; I confused the two linked articles. I hate to reply to myself, but I figured I should say this now. My fault.
two
Asteroids may be closer than they appear.
As usual, this is Sun's fault.
I knew people from planet Apple were almost as dedicated as people from planet Penguin, but I didn't think they wanted to destroy poor peace-loving Microsoft and its fledgling earth colony *that* much.
Er, what do you mean I've confused the stories? The Asteroid is for the Mac, right?
"Well, I think the best use of the new James Web tele... oh HEY What The ... QUICK, GET ON THE WARNING ... Oh shoot ... that was close ... nevermind."
Speaking of asteroids... I've heard somewhere that the burning of objects that enter the atmosphere being caused by friction is a misconception. Instead, it's actually heating caused by the immense air pressure that's created when an object moves fast enough through air. Is this true?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
May there be a higher beeing that just gave our politicians and the corporations corrupting them a warning shot?
At the moment, we have no defense against a planet-killing asteroid
Bikini Atoll might argue otherwise.
Seriously, if there are any Nuke-E guys out there [who would know what they're talking about] - what would be the effect of outer space detonation? Within the atmosphere, much of the damage to structures is caused by the shock wave travelling through the atmosphere - but, of course, in outer space, there is no atmosphere.
If you were to detonate on an asteroid, would [the 50% of the total] radiation that heads toward the asteroid be sufficient to rip apart the crystalline infrastructure of the rock?
^ ;)
Karma: Good. I'm hoping in the same way as pizza is 'good'...
My slashdot fortune cookie:
"This is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. And now you know why."
This should have been posted as "anonymous coward" 8-)
I've never heard of it, until today!
2002 is different from 2004, I feel bad for your HS Math teacher.
Despite what Hollywood would have you believe, ICBM's aren't designed to be launched into space and they have neither the thrust to propel a warhead out of our gravity well, nor the accuracy to hit anything smaller than 50km wide even if they did (and that's assuming that the asteroid is close). ICBM's were designed for one purpose...to put a small warhead within a few hundred yards of a stationary target less than 15,000 km away from the launch point. They are useless against moving targets hundreds of thousands of km away.
There is nothing else we could throw at an incoming asteroid. The simple reality is that if we humans spotted a big rock coming at us, even with a month or two to prepare for it, all we could really do is dig a shelter, store food away, and pray that it comes down on the OTHER side of the planet.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Objects in telescope are closer than they appear.
I think the Slashdot effect is very similar...
submit a story, it gets rejected, and a server admin sleeps quietly through the night.
One day... Mr Beer-Powered Robot Man. Just keep that site running......
Ok, of ALL the asteroids to talk about, space.com reports on a 16 ft rock that poses no threat at all to life on this rock?
Why don't we get a listing of every meteor that comes down? How big are the meteorites that actually hit the ground normally if this would have gone pow way up in the sky?
I think that more money shold be spent on finding asteroids that could kill us and ways to prevent that, but reporting on near misses with grains of dust comparative to Earth seems to be counter productive.
I recall seeing a video that someone took at a high school football game one time and they saw a big meteor coming down and got a good view of it. I do believe it was larger then 16 ft.
So no, they won't be "liberated".
We need to position something in orbit that we can hurl at incoming asteroids. The impact from the high speed collision would break the asteroid up or deflect it. To be effective, the collision object will need to be quite large. I propose that we position Michael Moore in orbit with some big accelerator rockets lashed to his back. Be a good citizen, Michael, your planet needs you.
Is it just me, or does it seem like we have one of these each month.
Are they becoming more frequent, or is it that we can monitor them more effectively now.
is for a military satellite to be hit by one and we can have ww3
I'm no republican, but I have to say, that wasn't even coherent.
Scary fireball thingy
Unfortunately there's no background objects visible so it's impossible to judge the scale
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
the red state ghettos are only in the blue dominated areas within the state. High poverty and high crime rate? It will vote Democratic.
assuming a radar installation on the other side of the earth at the time.
After all, they are nice and look after our rovers.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
When I went to the webpage, my norton internet security informed me someone was trying to do an overflow exploit on my computer.
/. that is used to compromise peoples computers.
Either that webpage has an error in it, or someone put a link on
BEWARE!
If you compress a gas, the temperature of the gas increases, When you expand a gas, the temperature of the gas decreases (which is why those compressed air cans get cold when you use them). Quite a bit of the heat generated by a meteor is caused by the compression of the atmosphere as the meteor enters the atmosphere. As the atmosphere re-expands behind the meteor, it cools back down; but the meteor is in a constant hot-spot.
Friction does play a part. Heat is created as the potential energy of the meteor is converted to kinetic energy (due to acceleration as it loses speed with respect to the atmosphere).
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
that asteroid couldn't have flown "under the radar" cuz radar doesn't work in space.
:-)
sorry, i had to say it.
...that fucker had taken out the united states of arrogance.
Has anyone checked if this was the one with my name on it?
I have nothing to say, just want people to read my cool new sig
Was that Planet X then? fnord_uk
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're not.
dont forget stopping Saddam's WMD!
If we have enough nukes to blow up the world 10 times over. I think we can blow up a tiny rock.
It would take an asteroid 11 times the size of earth for us to be in danger.
But, anybody know how I get on the list for that presidential underground bunker, end of the world thingee. (PS: even if you knew first, I call dibs)
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
So... when you say 'literally', you mean 'metaphorically' right? As in not literally under a radar... *sigh*
Homer: "So there's a commet. Big deal. It'll burn up in our atmosphere and whatever's left will be no bigger than a Chihuahua's head."
Bart: "Wow, dad. Maybe you're right."
Homer: "Of course I'm right. If I'm not may we all be horribly crushed from above somehow."
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
wow, a gravel passed a football... the only thing interesting here is the cosmic blind spot thing...
We don't have to spot the 16 footers.
--- Ban humanity.
or if we blow up the world first the rock won't hit it..
hi, /. get the contents of the article so wrong? Are you turning into a sensationalist tabloid? Maybe we should fling /. out to moon if that's the case.
I just finished reading the first part of the article linked in the original thread at space.com. They claim the object was between 40 and 80 meters (130-260 feet) in diameter, that it passed within 298,400 miles (480,200 km) (1.2x the distance to the moon) and that this occured on March 8th, 2004.
How did
sTc
Most things worth doing are worth doing twice. -- me I think or was that my boss' methodology?
All this BS about astroids is not JUST a way to give NASA money it is a way to justify the militarization of space. With NASA being just one of the many "money laundering" operations for that end. Yes, I am scared of an astroid impact. Just like everyday I worry about being hit by lightning while on my way to collecting on my winning lottery ticket.
I've always thought of Porn, as a sort of, poor mans prostitute. Or was that just my brothers inflatable girlfriend....Hmmm go figure
sheesh .. so little imagination, all you need is a hoppyist telescope, motor drive, a serial or usb ccd, a distributed client and a cash bounty for every new object found
.. for cash
doesn't that sound like a geek's dream job - sit at home, drink jolt and save the planet
Words to men, as air to birds.
Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Then the astronauts in the international space station, or the shuttle, or anyone for that matter who travel into space are really playing russian roulette. If an object over the size of a meter, or a baseball, hit a spacecraft then I'm sure the spacecraft wouldn't survive the impact...depending of course on how fast it was traveling.
I always wondered why they threw out this idea so readily when the Columbia disaster happened. It is perfectly feasable that Columbia may have been hit. Personally, if I were an astronaut I would be worried about this phenomenon a lot. Granted the chances are slim, but in space there's no atmosphere to protect them. For that matter, I wondered why it was so easy for the Voyager 2(?) spacecraft to fly through the rings of Saturn. But I have read that there are kilometers of distance between the objects in the rings.
Also, have astronomers really accounted for the huge amount of space debris (matter) that are spat out by supernova in there calculations on the mass of the universe? I mean asteroids are dark, and one the size of a house isn't likely to be seen over a light year away. So if there were billions of them strewn between the stars how would we know? What if most of them have a large mass? Would far off stars ever twinkle if a really large asteriod came between us and the star? What is really out there in deep space that doesn't glow? What if all those proposed hypernovas I've heard about recently filled space-time many years ago with asteroid type matter. It just isn't seen until it clusters into galaxies and ignites as a suns and reflects as planets?
THIS NEWS IS FAKE. You are wrong and deceived. 4 sided earth can not be destroyed. Cubism protects life and good and not you and your non-cube beliefs. You will be doomed as 4-sided time-cube life lives on good. Ignorant dumb educated by non-cubic time.
... if we DID ever find something heading towards Earth, you can bet your bottom that the Europeans and Asians et. al. that dislike America so much would suddenly be expecting US to DO something about the problem ...
Especially if we have to rely on Bruce Willis. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/ (Armageddon). Don't think he'd make a smart astronaut. Think he'd rather Die Hard: With a Vengence.
And, don't forget: blowing pieces of this earth that belong to other people.
And, don't forget: blowing pieces of this earth that belong to other people.
:-)
Doesn't that fall under the porn category?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Find out who drafted it and what their affiliations were, because I'm of the opinion that it was almost certainly crap written by guys who either don't want to think about scary things, or who don't want you to think about scary things. Or both. (Nobody likes to drink alone, after all.)
The media is designed to control and misdirect. NASA is a government body owned by the military and corporate interests, --the same people who own the media, and the filthy consumers like to feel safe and secure in their current fuzzed-out head-spaces.
Comet disaster is the elephant in the living room. Or, one of them, anyway. There are several others. --From my understanding the Earth is on its way to being hammered by a whole lot of rocks all at once, and the boys at the very top know it. Hence, the underground bunkers and the mad scramble to secure resources. Among other things. The big shewww is expected sometime during the next eight years or there about. It ought to be interesting, to say the least! I hope I survive the police state to see it all come down. (Pun intended.)
-FL
-pVoid
Assuming you are being seriously selfish, because our military is there.
Obviously an American couch potato.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
But whatever the cause, there are without question massive geologic features on this planet which suggest that such rock-storms have happened in the past, and are in fact fairly regular events which are probably cyclical. --Their cyclical nature results from the fact that rock clusters don't go away, but continue to orbit.
There is also reason to think that we're not just entering such a cycle again, but that the cluster of rocks are a fresh lot. It's not about one big rogue asteroid. When the shit hits it's probably not going to be isolated to just one event.
Of course, many people who don't like to think about scary ideas, or indeed any ideas which did not appear in their state-sanctioned text books, -such people will tell you that the huge increase in the number of recent news stories about rocks hitting the ground are simply the result of better reporting techniques and that nothing has otherwise changed. I think such people are not dealing with full data, and often not even the desire to have full data, but that's just me.
What you believe is up to you.
-FL
It was back in maybe 1965/66? Dark night with no moon, playing an away game of jv football in Albemarle? NC.
That sucker arced across 20% of the sky with a really orange red tail and exploded. Almost looked like dawn was coming, I waited for sound, started counting off seconds to range it's distance, but no sound ever came.
Just for a moment I thought it was the Russians, but that's another story.
Something I will never forget.
And some asteroids come even closer, entering the atmosphere. Most never reach the ground because they break apart under the stress of entry. One study of data collected by U.S. military satellites logged 300 in-air asteroid explosions.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
Definitely! Asteroids should be a top spending priority! What could be more important than Asteroids! I will write to my minister this very hour!
I think if there were a radar 23000 miles tall, I'd have heard about it by now. Duh.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
What about those triagular-looking spaceships that shoot the white dots?
It's interesting to note that when Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) tried to introduce a bill to provide additional funding for tracking near-earth asteroids, he was mocked by some of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's aides. In general, supporting things like this (even though they're actually pretty important) is a good way to get yourself targeted for "not caring about things here on Earth."
No, it didn't. If you don't know the meaning of the word, don't use it.
If your homeowner's insurance doesn't cover it, I'd be happy to sell you some asteroid impact auto insurance for $50 a month...
kurzweil_freak
5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
scientists have also acknowledged the presence of a second, nearly identical asteriod trailing directly behiDFJAFNDFK DJF *#%*# *****NO CARRIER*******
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Coincidentally, West Wing aired an episode a week ago, on December 15, called "Impact Winter", in which a large asteroid was detected close to Earth, on a probable collision course, after being obscured by the blind spot caused by the Sun's glare.
Many fansites were moaning about West Wing having jumped the shark for featuring such an absurd plot device...
Flout 'em and scout 'em,
and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free. - Shakespeare [The Tempest]
Nor do we need to worry about terrorists with nuclear weapons. What's a city or two in the long run? The two are roughly equivalent.
This is like worrying about that dust particle that almost hit me when I was walking out to my var Monday.
It's more like a bullet flying within three feet of you. No big deal, right?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Maybe someone is trying to "liberate" our "planet of terror".
Deep Impact will be launching a copper projectile onto the surface of Comet Tempel 1 and the flyby spacecraft will film the creation of a large crater. All data will be visual only and unfortunately the launch has been delayed.
In contrast the ESA Rosetta Mission is going to orbit Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and attempt to lower a small lander onto it.
The animation of comet rendevous shows expected time to reach it is another 10+ years, the mission ends in December 2015. The launch took place successfully in March of this year.
The purpose of both missions is to discern chemical composition of these very old objects.
RTA. It was not under 23,000 miles away, it was under 298,000 miles away - 1.3 times the distance to the moon, and WAY beyond geostationary orbit. This was just poor editing.
Ah...I seem to have read the wrong article...Sorry about that...
I see it in my head - green faced alien on stereo-TV is talking about GWB, an evil tyrant and merciless baby killer.
Wow... that's the biggest asteriod I've ever heard of!
No, real programmers have 8 fingers, plus 1 start and 1 stop
in korea only old people burn up
what does any of this matter for? we're all going to rapture anyday now!
In general, supporting things like this (even though they're actually pretty important) is a good way to get yourself targeted for "not caring about things here on Earth."
UK Politician Lembit Opik gets flak for his obsession with this as well (or it could be about his upcoming marriage to Sian Lloyd, UK's favourite weather girl...). He does though, have the added distinction of being Ernst Julius Öpik's (Estonian astrophysicist specializing in asteroids and the like) grandson.
I'm quitting my job and hitting the titty bar. See you on the other side.
With the name Anthony Weiner.....I don't think it was his bill they were mocking.
John Glenn commented that there was a 1 in 455 chance that the asteroid could collide with an airplane and therefore we should not populate it to save the species from later earth killing catastrophic events.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
They're already here.
Sure, it would cause no damage to the Earth itself, but it sure could cause damage.
What if it hit a few satellites as it passed by us? What if Russia's doomsday device notices, and launches their ICBM's?
Movie Reference.
...we spend it on sports figures, actors, and politicians.
I'll have you know that I've never given any money to Arnold Schwarzenegger! Okay, maybe a few bucks here and there to rent a movie, but that's it...Isn't it great that we've reached the point where we can just roll it all into one person?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's sci-fi novel Lucifer's Hammer has a great scene where the astrophysicist Dan Forrester goes through a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the results of a comet's impact. His conclusion: If it hits land it's bad for anyone underneath(!) but most of the energy re-radiates to space. If it hits water (more likely, since the earth's surface is 70% water) most of the energy goes into water vapor--literally boiling the ocean and kicking off a new ice age.
He didn't say "drill it into the CENTER of the asteriod"
A nuclear warhead has tremendous energy but little mass. An asteriod has tremendous mass. In order to balance the momentum equation, in order to push the asteriod off course you have to make an equal momentum change in the other direction.
Which means you want to vaporize or eject enough of the asteriod in one direction, which means you need to get under a significant amount of it - not so much that you risk it not being rapidly ejected by your warhead, but otherwise more gives you a better chance of pushing the asteriod away.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
From Merriam Webster:
;)
1 : in a literal sense or manner : ACTUALLY
2 : in effect : VIRTUALLY
usage Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary.
The word literal began to suck some time ago.
Such as soaking the taxpayers for even more "public projects" and assorted corporate welfare for their buddies. If we keep this up, Humanity will deserve its extinction.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
At least, you are if you want me to believe it.
That's very fair, but let's be clear about one thing; I don't want you to believe anything. Your search for knowledge is yours alone. --I do, however, think it is important to make avenues of learning available when possible. To share.
That being the case, I will explain a bit more of what I understand about the issue. .
Our solar system has two stars; one did not achieve enough mass to start the fusion process, and so remains a giant ball of matter invisible as it is beyond the reflective range of the Sun, and because it emits no visible light. One would think that it might be found by radio telescopes, but nobody is looking for it, and the sky is large. It's orbit around our sun is quite massive, taking about two hundred and thirty thousands years to complete. It is an elliptical orbit, and at it's nearest point to the Sun, it brushes just beyond Pluto's orbit, passing through the Kuiper belt.
This theory is called the 'Dark Star', or 'Nemesis' theory. This you can look up for yourself. The general concensus among astronomers who give credence to the theory is that such a body is needed to explain orbital irregularities seen in the other planets which remain otherwise unaccounted for. This is, of course, a fairly unpopular theory and it is not taught anywhere I know of in orthodox learning institutions, but the theory itself appears to be sound.
It was expected to be seen at its closest orbit, as within Pluto's range, it ought to have been visible. Interestingly, back around 1999, a large object was noted, and discussed, but it was played down and called different things, explained in different ways. --Made out to be a fairly small planetoid, between the size of Pluto or the Moon, but this I believe was probably a misdirection since such a small body would not account for the irregularities in the planetary orbits of the rest of the solar system.
Anyway. .
The theory regarding regularly appearing comet impacts resulting from this body knocking debris from the Kuiper belt into low orbit is less easily discussed, coming as it does from a channeled source. --That would be, from alien intelligences communicating through a ouija board. Information of that kind is generally ignored by most serious researchers for a variety of reasons, all largely stemming from social programming and bias. --On one side of the fence are the religious types who fear such communications come from biblical monsters, while on the other side of the fence are those who have been successfully brought to bear under the reigns of the 'cult of science', which limits and twists the powers of rational thinking so that its followers remain easily led and easily blinded to un-profitable ways of thinking. Proper science without social controls and knee-jerk emotional reactions is rare.
Interestingly, though, when using these esoteric leads to investigate the possibilities of regular comet impacts, lots of evidence does in fact turn up, through historical texts, geologic evidence, etc.
In any case, those are some leads you may follow if you choose.
-FL
I just was just thinking and wondering is NASA our only defence if we do find something? Its a very scarry thought if they are. There is no good reason that we humans are not on other planets or at least mars. We have all our eggs in one basket and one little rock could come and end it all.
Enjoy.
Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 0.00 km = 0.00 miles
Projectile Diameter: 16.00 m = 52.48 ft = 0.01 miles
Projectile Density: 8000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 17.00 km/s = 10.56 miles/s
Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
Target Type: Sedimentary Rock
Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 2.48 x 1015 Joules = 592.27 KiloTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth is 73.5 years
Atmospheric Entry:
The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 13400 meters = 44100 ft
The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 6880 meters = 22600 ft
The residual velocity of the projectile fragments after the burst is 5.02 km/s = 3.12 miles/s
The energy of the airburst is 2.26 x 1015 Joules = 0.54 x 100 MegaTons.
No crater is formed, although large fragments may strike the surface.
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably. Air Blast:
Tech Public Policy stuff
REALLY? wow I hadn't noticed. Maybe that is my problem this quarter in my masters program. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
.. how is that working out for you anyway?
... being clever.
Perhaps it was less obvious that it said 2002 and a simple matter of looking at the wrong link first (out of the two).
So
You know
If you can't be good, be good at it!
Ask the dinos if asteroids were important. Wait, there aren't any dinos. Huh. How about that?
Just because some people haven't the imagination and foresight to properly slot asteroid impact priorities, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. They'll want to survive, even if they aren't very bright. That's an instinct that transcends the median IQ line, even if comprehension doesn't.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.