Asteroid Will Make Close Pass To Earth

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Asteroid Will Make Close Pass To Earth

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday March 4, 2012 @09:44AM from the skin-of-your-teeth dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "News is starting to spread about a small 45-meter-wide asteroid called 2012 DA14 that will make a close pass to Earth on February 15, 2013. However, some of these articles are claiming it has 'a good chance' of impacting the Earth. This is simply incorrect; the odds of an impact next year are essentially zero. Farther in the future the odds are unclear; another near pass may occur in 2020, but right now the uncertainties in the asteroid's orbit are too large to know much about that. More observations of DA14 are being made, and we should have better information about future encounters soon."

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Want to see more? by NoZart · 2012-03-04 10:00 · Score: 5, Funny

Seeing more and more reports of near passes. Frigging Bugs must be out of target practice and are homing in on us! Get NPH!
1. Re:Want to see more? by BeerCat · 2012-03-04 10:02 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Service guarantees citizenship
  
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  "She's furniture with a pulse"
2. Re:Want to see more? by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2012-03-04 10:09 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I'd like to know more.
Of course it won't hit us by NoobixCube · 2012-03-04 10:01 · Score: 4, Funny

The world ends toward the end of this year, duh! Of course the chance of hitting the Earth is 0%, because we won't be here!

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Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
1. Re:Of course it won't hit us by Xtifr · 2012-03-04 11:26 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I think you misunderstand the disaster that's coming. When the Mayan calendar ends, all computers that use the Mayan calendar will crash, world-wide. Worse yet, unlike Y2K, where we were able to drag old Cobol programmers out of retirement to fix the problem, experts in Mayan computers are all extinct. So we're all doomed! Except for those of us who don't use Mayan computers. :)
pfffffff..... by butilikethecookie · 2012-03-04 10:31 · Score: 4, Funny

What's up with all of these close passes? Hey universe! Grow some nuts and actually hit us with one, you pussy!
Re:Big sky, little rock by oodaloop · 2012-03-04 11:13 · Score: 5, Funny

Oh thank goodness an anonymous coward has determined there's nothing to worry about. Hey everybody! Everything's OK!

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Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Re:45 meters? by jovius · 2012-03-04 17:49 · Score: 3, Funny

See, meteorites create tourist attractions. The larger the crater the bigger the cash flow. Meteorite impacts are good for the economy.