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NASA Says Asteroid Will Buzz Earth Closer Than Many Satellites
coondoggie writes "NASA says an asteroid about half the size of a football field will blow past Earth on Feb 15 closer than many man-made satellites. NASA added that while the asteroid, designated 2012 DA14, has no chance of striking Earth. Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, astronomers have never seen an object so big come so close to our planet."
A soccer field doesn't have any size defined. It's just "between 90 and 120m" long and "between 45 and 90m" wide. So btw the smallest and biggest field, there is almost a factor of 2.7 in area. That's a bit of a margin!
Write boring code, not shiny code!
On the actual asteroid.
Television or the internet. They'll have great footage made by professional astronomers, along with commentaries from said astronomers. As opposed to you sitting in your garden with a pair of binos, seeing nothing at all and freezing your balls off while your wife screams at you because you're late for dinner.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Why source a story sourced from NASA to some wanker's blog in Network World"?Presuambly this asshole just submitted it himself to get more pageviews.
The actual NASA story is Record Setting Asteroid Flyby And it actually tells you that "On Feb. 15th an asteroid about half the size of a football field will fly past Earth only 17,200 miles above our planet's surface." (Sadly even NASA use the inane "football field" measure, but goes on to say "It measures some 50 meters wide".)
Ehh... I have battery power heated thermal socks I will put over my balls. They will be fine. As for the wife, if she isn't passed out drunk, she will never get her fat ass off the couch long enough to make dinner.
Unfortunately, my binoculars are broken because the neighbor thought I was looking through the window when his wife was getting out of the shower. Of course I wasn't, I was watching the TV in their bedroom in an attempt to get away from my wife.
But hey, I'm still interested in standing in the garden looking at nothing if you want to tell me which direction I should stare at.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001569/bio
"He is a black belt in Tang Soo Do and Tae Kwan Do. In 1969, he earned the Triple Crown for the highest number of tournament wins, and was named Fighter of the Year by "Black Belt" magazine. By the time he was 34, Norris had established 32 karate schools and had been a champion for six years. In 1996, he became the first Westerner to be awarded an eighth-degree black belt in Tae Kwan Do"
I am not a big fan of this guy, and i agree these Chuck Norris jokes are very annoying, however, facts are facts and clearly you are wrong about the martial arts.
Famous last words.
Because the laws of dramatic irony obviously trump the laws of physics.
Martial Arts is a broad term, and most people (like you) only pay attention to the "Martial" part. The Style that Chuck specializes in and teaches in his schools is focused on rigid adherence to the traditional Forms, and application of mental Discipline. They are as well-suited to an open fighting situation as disciplines classified as Fighting Styles, which is why you don't see people using pure forms in competitions like the UFC... winners often have a background from a variety of styles which is why they are called "mixed martial arts" competitions.
Not to say that people like Chuck and Bruce Lee aren't pretty mean fighters, anybody with that much training is not going to be an easy mark. But I'd put almost anybody who fights in the large UFC competitions against a pure style fighter any day, especially if they aren't in a ring with time limits and rules.
Having said all that, it's important to note that Chuck, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and other popular film fighters have to slow down most of their moves so the audience can follow the action, and what they actually do on screen are sequences and styles you wouldn't ever actually use in real life combat. Many of the "moves" they display for the camera are not actually combat moves, but rather are meditative Forms designed to build endurance, focus, and strength.
Of course, if there were an impact, and it was in the territory of the former Soviet Union, the asteroid STILL would not be said to have struck the Earth, so much as the Earth striking the asteroid.
I'm just saying.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.