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New Asteroid Becomes Earth's Biggest Threat
inexion wrote to mention a story on PhysOrg stating that we're all doomed. "A space rock capable of sub-continent scale devastation has about a one in 1,000 risk of colliding with Earth early next century, the highest of any known asteroid, watchers said on Thursday. The rock, 2004 VD17, is about 500 metres (yards) long and has a mass of nearly a billion tonnes, which -- if it were to impact -- would deliver 10,000 megatonnes of energy, equivalent to all the world's nuclear weapons. Spotted on November 27 2004, VD 17 was swiftly identified as rock that potentially crossed Earth's orbit, with a 1 in 3,000 risk of collision on May 4 2102."
For anyone interested in the hard numbers, here's NASA's impact risk summary of 2004 VD17.
For those like myself who prefer pretty pictures, here's the 3D orbit diagram of 2004 VD17 (Java required).
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I'm sure everyone has seen the movie Armageddon. Is drilling even an option in real life? Should we fire some nuclear warheads at it to try and change it's path?
I don't know much about the science of this but I have always been very interested in what we would do about this. I saw on the Discovery channel a long time ago that we could do something like shooting a laser at it to try and break it apart as well as some solar sails. They also mentioned placing some rockets on an astroid and moving it.
Now I'll be dead by the time this thing gets close enough. Should we just assume we'll have better technology then and fire some photon torpedos at it?
Today is March 2, 2006. Our government defines 15 months as "swift"?
Oh no!! Earth is going to be destroyed by VD!! Blame the damn liberals!!
And so NOW how do you feel about our ability to calculate probability ?
"NASA Scientists reveal same computer used for ill-fated Mars Orbiter now used to compute asteroid orbits. Announces probability of collision with Earth to be 'like, maybe, we dunno. Kilometers, miles, who the hell understands all this metric crap anyway ? Please just increase our budget and we'll stop trying to scare you !"
We only have 96 years to save ourselves!
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Forty seventh post!
My UID is prime. Hah!
I thought these asteroid things had been roaming the glaxaly for thousands of years? Even if they meant to say "newly discovered", that still isn't quite right. The thing has been being tracked for over a year now.
Anyway, it says the impact wouldn't happen till 2102. I plan to be quite dead by that date from normal causes so it's not my problem:P
I think someone forgot the conversion number to put inside the parenthesis as yards does not equal meters at a factor of 1:1 ... Should've been, 580 metres (638 yards). Also, 500 is not correct as according to the JPL, the diameter is 580 meters.
if it crashes into the ocean, we already have trained sharks that can cut it up with laser beams. and the earth's surface is like 70% water, so i think we're safe.
What we need is a video game that'll teach kids to violently beat sharks to death, mind powers or not. Only then will our future be safe!
But they may need training in dodging lasers first. Some of those sharks have frickin' lasers on their foreheads, and may be ill-tempered.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Let's drill out every bit of oil and dig up every bit of coal and force feed the economy into olympic level steriod consumption. We'll revoke all the anti-pollution laws. We'll ignore global warming, planing to use the newly generated riches to get off the planet just before the asteriod wipes this shithole out."
PROOF CONCLUSIVE THAT GEORGE W BUSH POSTS ON SLASHDOT!!!
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