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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."
"...might... ...tiny chance... ...could... ...if..."
Fuck you. I'll be 133 years old hooked up to machines and tubes.
I CARE
Trolling is a art,
We'd better freeze Bruce Willis, just to be sure.
Isn't enough that I ruined a pony, making a gift for you?
Well, Bruce Willis' head in a jar at least.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Steamboat Willie will still be copyrighted.
I'm eligible for retirement in 2012, so the world as I know it will surely end. Don't know about the rest of you guys, though. More importantley...
Our calendar ends on Dec 31st of THIS YEAR! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!
Free Martian Whores!
That test was an air burst. In any case a nuclear weapon delivers its energy as heat while a meteorite delivers its as kinetic energy so the effects are not going to be the same even when the energy is.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
By 2098 it'll probably be more like 85% of the Earth covered in water. By the coastal city of Denver will be under a tsunami watch just in case.
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.
I CARE TOO This asteroid has been poised for millions of years, ready to strike Earth in 2098, and the story has made it to /. just now? Come on editors!
Not fair smoking something that good and gloating about it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
They JUST found this thing. The amount of data available to determine it's orbit isn't enough to know exactly where it is going. HOWEVER when they dig up some old sky photos they will find earlier positions of this thing. The more earlier data points the better they will be able to predict it's path. Usually this means that the odds of an Earth impact will go down. It's happened before with other newly discovered objects.
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.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Get off my synthilawn you Dawkindarned thirtynagers!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It always intrigues me when people say we will have never-ending war. Have you actually looked at the statistics to see what has happened to war in the past three decades, or the past century? The number of wars has dropped dramatically and consistently. I know it is hard sometimes for a person from the US to see this, since it feels like we've become more warlike since the 90s, but if you actually look at the numbers that's more of an illusion.
As the remaining fighters realize they have more to gain from trade than from fighting, then wars will continue to cease.
Qxe4
I was thinking recently that we were lucky that most of the ecosphere-killing events in our history were astoundingly long ago and that our local space should be pretty clear by now. And then I realized that the dinosaur extinction event that happened 65 million years ago took place when the Earth was about 98.6% as old as it is now. If the Earth was now a day old, the dinosaurs were wiped out at 11:40PM. Suddenly those past catastrophes seemed not as comfortingly ancient.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
All you need is brainz! All you need is brainz! All you need is brainz brainz... brainz is all you need.
when I find myself in times of trouble, mother mary comes to me... and I eat her brainz, its yummy, its yummy.
yesterday, my mortality was so far away, but i find that I am rotting today. oh i believe in yesterday