Fifty Meter Asteroid Might Hit Earth In 2098

eldavojohn writes "The Bad Astronomer brings word of an asteroid discovered with a tiny chance of hitting Earth. While it's only 50 meters wide, it could have the impact of a 20 megaton bomb. It's still twenty million miles away so if it hits us, it won't happen until 2098. The real story here is how a remarkable telescope, dubbed Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, that went operational in May found its first potential target in our growing impact alert system for Earth."

Comments

Is it REALLY that bad?

[AnonymousClown]

BA:

An impact by something like that is about the same as exploding a 20 megaton bomb.

So yeah, bad.

Wiki:

The largest nuclear weapon ever tested was the "Tsar Bomba" of the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961, with an estimated yield of around 50 megatons.

So this impact would be 40% of the Soviet test. How badly did the Soviet test harm the Earth?

Re:Is it REALLY that bad?

[Wyatt Earp]

3% of the Earth's surface is urban area, so chances are it won't hit a heavily populated area.

Re:Is it REALLY that bad?

[Wyatt Earp]

20MT in the sea? No it really won't do much in the way of tsunamis.

FTA - "An object a bit smaller than that carved out Meteor Crater in Arizona." So less than 1.5km wide, that'd make a smallish hole in the ocean, but nothing like that feared landslide from the Azores.

Big Deal?

[Tyler Durden]

Twenty megaton blast? Meh. We've seen worse.

Of course, I'm sure where it strikes will make a bit of difference.

author shouldn't be reporting on science

[frovingslosh]

The /. summary reads " It's still twenty million miles away so if it hits us, it won't happen until 2098". This statement seems to imply that because it is 20 million miles away it will take 88 years to get here. That implies a very poor understanding of basic math and science skills. 20 million miles is just not that much in terms of astronomy. The earth is about 93 million miles from the sun, and covers a distance of over 300 million miles each year as it falls around the sun. 20 million miles would not take this rock 88 years to reach us, the real issue is that its orbit and the earth's orbit don't intersect until 2098. Until then the rock may be closer or farther than 20 million miles from us, the 20 million is just a distance it was away from us at one time.