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Missing Potential Earth-Busting Asteroid Found
Billosaur writes "A potentially disastrous 40-year-old mystery has been solved: Where is asteroid 6344 P-L? Back in 1960, asteroid 6344 P-L was identified and classified as a 'Potentially Hazardous Asteroid,' meaning that its orbit brings it perilously close to Earth's orbit (on the cosmic scale). Unfortunately, it then disappeared, or more precisely, was lost from view. Flash forward to 2007 and scientists believe that 6344 P-L has been rediscovered as 2007 RR9. Further, they are not sure it is an actual asteroid, but actually a comet fragment, which won't hit the Earth anytime soon but bears watching."
Close in astronomic scale and we just "lost" it for a while, like, perhaps we took our eye off the ball?
to this Terrorist.
Patriotically,
K Trout
it's still .7 units away. We just happen to know where it is now...
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
> Further, they are not sure it is an actual asteroid, but actually a comet fragment
I don't know about you, but I would perfer to go extinict by asteroid rather than a puny comet fragement
for the asteroid/comet fragment is 'Waldo'.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Now they can help me find my keys
First the Cubs and Red Sox in the playoffs, and now this.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Why are the Bears Watching this? The Chicago ones or Black Bears? If Stephen Colbert hears about that, he's gonna FLIP!
...and it should be known by now
Can't we just get whacked by a planetkiller and be done with it? Think of the benefits:
Global warming made irrelevant.
Overpopulation? Not anymore.
Think of it as God (or the FSM) saying "Aww, fuck it" and hitting the reset button.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Didn't realise bears were into astronomy!
I'll be off topic, but I still have to say, it's not even funny anymore when I see this story got tagged as: science, space, linuxbites, linuxisinsecure, linuxsucks Get a grip already.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I say we get up there and tear the damn thing's tail off. It's the only way to really deal with a comet.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Can someone please do something about this tagging? They're being used to mark things with opinions not with a better way to search for things. For example the current tags are.
linuxbites, linuxisinsecure, linuxsucks
How is that related to this article at all?
I like muppets.
Asteroid collisions are like hard disks crashes. May it happen? Yes, in theory. But the chance that it will actually happen is extremely low. So it is not something to be so worried abo#`%${%&+'$`%& NO CARRIER
Circumcision is child abuse.
names were being given out for stellar humans...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Of COURSE they're saying it isn't going to hit Earth. What else can they say? If they tell us the truth, which is that they found it because it's going to slam into the Earth before the end of month, there would be mass panic, lawlessness, total anarchy.
I've been observing it since they found it, and I just did some quick calculations using Excel, and I can confirm that it IS going to hit Earth.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Took me a while to parse "FSM". Asking would no doubt have brought in a slew of wikipedia references (that would subsequently be modded "informative") and several rounds of "You must be new here".
Just another load of frop that I didn't need...
A goal is a dream with a deadline
And named it "Skippy".
Is this the missing meteor?
There's also a nice new scar on the moon's left side if anyone is paying attention any more.
In fact the video was traded around on P2P for a while (recorded by someone else)
No Such Asteroid.
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
So the solution to any object on a (near) collision course to earth is for the astronomers observing the object to just blink. In astronomic terms, a blink would be enough time to loose track of the object. By the time they found it again, it would simply have missed us.
Take your mod and shove it!
... Chuck Norris will roundhouse kick that big rock right back into space.
99942 Apophis doesn't have the once-reported 1-in-36 chance of hitting us in 2029 anymore... now it's odds of hitting us in 2036 are pretty slim as well. It was a Torino scale 4, now it's zero.
1) Well of COURSE it "bears watching". They're ASTRONOMERS, they think EVERYTHING in space "bears watching".
2) I really love the metaphor Bill Bryson made (in "A Short History of Everything", hugely recommended) -
"An asteroid passing between us and the moon is like a bullet passing through your shirt sleeve without quite touching the skin".
Jose Arguelles forecast using the Mayan Calendar that a cataclysm will take place in 2012.
"Those that promote the December 21, 2012 date almost invariably lack a model for understanding evolution based on the Mayan calendar and are instead placing all the importance on what will happen on one particular day; December 21, 2012. What they suggest for this date is typically an event in the sky or a pole shift, a comet that will hit the earth or some other physical or astronomical singular event."