Newly Discovered 60-foot Asteroid About To Buzz By Earth

An asteroid nicknamed "Pitbull" and detected by the University of Arizona observatory atop Mt. Lemmon on August 31st will make a close approach to Earth Sunday; it's predicted to pass at a distance of about 25,000 miles, and to pass over New Zealand. According to the article, The asteroid is a similar size to the rock which caused enormous damage to the city of Chelyabinsk in Siberia. Last year's explosion generated the equivalent energy of more than 20 atomic bombs detonating and left more than 1,000 people injured while damaging thousands of buildings. Astronomers at Nasa, who track the movements of the more than 11,000 near-Earth objects, are confident Pitbull will not strike the planet.

Comments

60 feet... means what?

[Anonymous Coward]

So let's say it hit 5 miles off the coast of San Francisco.. what would happen?

And whatif it hit in the center of the US, on land? Are we talking a loud noise? A meteor crater type of thing? The end of the world?

Please tell me how scared I need to be for next time! Thanks!

Re:60 feet... means what?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Wikipedia:

The object that excavated the crater was a nickel-iron meteorite about 50 meters (160 feet) across.

Source

So this is less diameter, but maybe was a different material or moving faster/slower or at a different angle.. so I dunno.

Re:60 feet... means what?

[perpenso]

The meteor crater impact (160 foot object) is believed to have killed everything within about 2 miles, killed half of everything out to about 8 miles, ...
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/s...

I believe that in general water impacts are considered more dangerous. Unlike air, water will transmit the energy over greater distances and the tsunami can do more damage than an impact itself.

Re:60 feet... means what?

[Opportunist]

It would result in headlines starting "Near the coast, the ruins formerly known as San Francisco..."

Re:60 feet... means what?

[wonkey_monkey]

"...have been hit by a meteor."

Re:60 feet... means what?

[ihtoit]

"...causing about ten Dollars worth of damage."

Re:60 feet... means what?

[nbauman]

You can shoot your own impacts here

http://www.purdue.edu/impactea...

or here

http://simulator.down2earth.eu...

Re:60 feet... means what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would probably turn gay and complain about BART

Re:60 feet... means what?

[wonkey_monkey]

"...causing about ten million dollars worth of improvements."

Re:60 feet... means what?

[ihtoit]

::spudhead:: GPP said San Francisco, not North Haverbrook. :D

Re:60 feet... means what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this was already answered in various posts in the comments for the last Slashdot discussion. There were comments like:

Even if it was quite dense rock and managed to hit at 90 degrees, it would still mostly break up in the air and you would get a spray of fragments over a couple hundred meters not strong enough to create any large crater. Even the 90 degree case in both shallow and deep water will not create tsunami more than a meter high.

The total kinetic energy of the thing in space is a couple of megatons, a lot of which is lost upon hitting the atmosphere before even breaking up. You're not going to get devastation orders of magnitude larger than a large nuclear weapon under worst case scenario. And if it comes in at something less than a 90 degree angle, you could end up with something like the Chelyabinsk meteor, since this is nearly the same size and a bit faster.

You can check things like this for yourself using an impact effects calculator from Imperial College, which agrees with the quoted comment.

As far as the linked crater in the parent post, that would have been for a meteor with 15 times the volume of this one, and as it was a nickel-iron meteorite, it would be about as dense as it gets, so this one wouldn't be denser. Although the newly discovered one may be going from 50-100% faster depending on which estimate of the speed you use for the one that made the crater.

Re:60 feet... means what?

[wonkey_monkey]

Go away! There ain't no monorail and there never was!

Why waste the opportunity?

[Tablizer]

Can we aim it at ISIS?

Re: Why waste the opportunity?

[knwny]

And why not split it into a few more fragments for other terrorist/militant/organised crime/separatist groups across the world. There would be some collateral damage. But then who cares as long our countries are safe, eh?

Re:Why waste the opportunity?

[Anonymous Coward]

ISIS, no such thing. Mainstream Media nonsense to keep you in fear. And you're even more ignorant if you think Mainstream Media would never make things up. I don't even watch the news anymore, it's all BS.

As a result I have less stress and am worry-free. Do yourself a favor, turn it off.

Re: Why waste the opportunity?

[Anonymous Coward]

Head, meet hole-in-the-sand. Stick it in for blissful ignorance.

Re:Why waste the opportunity?

[Kaz Kylheku]

Your plan is working so well that you somehow still know about ISIS, and it bothers you so much that you have to convince yourself they don't exist.

Holy Dupe, Batman

[Hadlock]

This thing left Earth space six hours ago! It'll be closer to Mars than us by the time I make my first pot of Coffee on Monday.

Re:Holy Dupe, Batman

[ArcadeMan]

This thing left Earth space six hours ago!

So... we're safe?

Re:Holy Dupe, Batman

[TheInternetGuy]

From the asteroids, yes. But the clowns are still going to get you.

Is this one off or ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are these Asteroids one off events ? Or are there a bunch of them in the waiting from debris of a huge chunk ?

Re:Is this one off or ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are these Asteroids one off events ? Or are there a bunch of them in the waiting from debris of a huge chunk ?

Yes and yes.

Energy for space travel

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a lot of energy. Has anyone studied using the energy for space travel?

Re:Energy for space travel

[perpenso]

That is a lot of energy. Has anyone studied using the energy for space travel?

Unless you are converting ice to fuel what energy is that? Kinetic energy, a glancing impact sending you off on some vector (pool table physics)?

Re:Energy for space travel

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably a Space Nutter fantasizing about "spaceships" like he saw on TV as a child. Nothing serious.

Re:Energy for space travel

[X0563511]

For about 5 seconds.

Because that's as much time as it takes you to realize you'd spend just as much (more, actually) energy to rendezvous with it, only to find out that it's now (relative to you) a stationary chunk of inert materials.

Re:Energy for space travel

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not the prevailing Space Nutter narrative. A rock in space is worth more than gold on the Earth, just because it's in space. Space is not a deadly vacuum, you see, it is a cornucopia filled with resources. Easy to get resources!

Re:Energy for space travel

[X0563511]

Oh, well it could well be made up of platinum or whatever, but that's not going to get you any energy usable for propulsion out of it.

If the intent is to capture resources, that's different. This twerp was asking about using it for travel. Completely different mission profile. ... oh, and I'm a space nutter myself, thank you very much.

Re:Energy for space travel

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a lot of energy. Has anyone studied using the energy for space travel?

Unless you are converting ice to fuel what energy is that? Kinetic energy, a glancing impact sending you off on some vector (pool table physics)?

How about a bungee cord and a harpoon? Accelerate the harpoon via railgun and let the meteor slingshot the payload up via the bungee cord.

There, I've handled the hard part of inspiration, you just bang out the details. I'm absolutely positive that even Einstein agrees I've handled the 99% part.
Absolutely sure.

More seriously, it'll be nice if we can, as a species, to get to the point in the future where we have more zero fuel cost electric energy production than needed. We could make railguns like this and play with the exotic material science needed to actually make this sort of thing a reality, not that we'd need it as much when space elevators and lunar power stations are a real thing.

1 week's warning

[heldal]

Now what could we possibly have done in such a short time, should it have been heading directly towards us?

Re:1 week's warning

[ShanghaiBill]

Now what could we possibly have done in such a short time, should it have been heading directly towards us?

We couldn't stop it, but we could predict the impact site, and take action to minimize damage. In the unlikely event that the impact site was populated, people in the area could remove fragile items from shelves, move into shelter, and stay away from windows that might shatter.

Re:1 week's warning

[perpenso]

Now what could we possibly have done in such a short time, should it have been heading directly towards us?

Evacuate 20 miles from the expected point of impact. Its not a dinosaur-killer, its much smaller than the meteor crater object. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/s...

Re:1 week's warning

[FlyHelicopters]

You're missing the point...

What if we had 1 week warning of the dinosaur-killer?

The implied point is that perhaps we should be putting some effort into getting more warning and finding all the dino killers (and frankly, stuff a lot small than that rock was).

Re:1 week's warning

[ihtoit]

carried on as normal, since such a vector would result in the asteroid passing through our wake. The ones you want to worry about are the ones that intersect at a point in the future, our orbital path where we're going to be at the same time as that intersection occurs.

Re:1 week's warning

[styrotech]

What if we had 1 week warning of the dinosaur-killer?

Well personally, assuming that there was no safe place to send them, I'd take the week off work and spend it with my dinosaurs just to let them know how much I appreciated my time with them.

I'd probably need a little more time off work after that too. Thankfully my boss is pretty generous with bereavement leave.

Re:1 week's warning

[DanielRavenNest]

The implied point is that perhaps we should be putting some effort into getting more warning and finding all the dino killers (and frankly, stuff a lot small than that rock was).

That is in fact what NASA has been doing for the past two decades: http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/ They have found about 90% of the 1-km or larger class. Chixulub the dino killer is estimated at 6 km, and impact energy scales as the cube of diameter. Unfortunately, asteroid tracking doesn't help with long-period comets. Those come in from the dark reaches of the outer Solar System, and therefore cannot be found until they are within a couple of years of hitting us.

Re:1 week's warning

[X0563511]

We already are, but NASA gets far less funding than fucking around over in various shitholes around the world.

Re:1 week's warning

[gmuslera]

Was my biggest concern. Shortly after it got discovered was concluded that won't hit us. But we got a short time notice, in the case that it would be precisely calculated where it would land, and that be over/near a big city (even with the low odds of it), would be no way to stop it, and for some scale of cities 1 week of advice won't be enough (or will do by itself enough damage).

We should hope that bigger/more damaging rocks should be more visible and that we get aware of them with more anticipation, but in the other hand, we are using now the money that we could invest in detect or even avoid that kind of end of the world scenarios on saving banks of their own risk taking or creating new wars.

Re:1 week's warning

[TigerPlish]

Now what could we possibly have done in such a short time

Forget our petty differences, reconcile with the irreconcilable, forgive the unforgivable, relish the memories, and then throw the most epic party in the history of our planet as one united people planet-wide.

Go out with a raised glass of whatever beverage you prefer in one hand and a joint in the other!

Re:1 week's warning

[FlyHelicopters]

Yes, my implied point was that perhaps we should take a few hundred million from the military and give it to NASA. :)

Nasa?

[Concerned Onlooker]

I know this is a nitpick, but this is a site for nerds after all. It's NASA.

Re:Nasa?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also: What are these "feet" you speak of ?

Re:Nasa?

[Tablizer]

That's how Jar Jar would spell it.

Remember when we didn't get buzzed by boulders?

[Anonanonaon]

You know what would be cool..? Somebody, (with more patience than me), should go back in Slashdot history and find the first story of a big rock buzzing the Earth.

And then work out the frequency of such events after that point.

And note the various distances from the Earth of said 'buzz'. You know. Threat level. Hey, maybe measure in potential megatons!

That'd be one awesome cool chart.

Re:Remember when we didn't get buzzed by boulders?

[theshowmecanuck]

Then divide by two or three for all the duplicate stories on the same rock.

Pitbull

[Anonymous Coward]

More like a Chihuahua.

A Chihuahua is going to nip and screw your ankles up. Take out a city.
A Pitbull will tear your ass up beyond repair. Extinction level event.

Re:Pitbull

[clovis]

A Pitbull will tear your ass up beyond repair.

Umm, I don't let my dog do that to me.

Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

This article already did a flyby 2 days ago

You'll need a simple telescope

[jeti]

The event won't be bright enough for binoculars, but with a magnitude of up to 12, it should be visible with a simple telescope.

Re:You'll need a simple telescope

[torsmo]

You would also need a good motor drive to track such a fast moving object.

Equivalent to the energy of 20 atomic bombs?

[93 Escort Wagon]

And yet, somehow, the city still stands...

Re:Equivalent to the energy of 20 atomic bombs?

[Rick in China]

Cause science?

It detonated about 30km above Earth, and most of the kinetic energy was absorbed by the atmosphere. If the detonation happened *in* or near a city, the devastation would have been what you'd imagine it would have been, rather than what it really was -- an atmospheric explosion in one of the most remote inhabited areas of the planet.

Re:Equivalent to the energy of 20 atomic bombs?

[GNious]

purely guess-work, but perhaps 19.9 of those atom-bomb-units were spent by the fragments passing through the atmosphere?

Re:Equivalent to the energy of 20 atomic bombs?

[amaurea]

An "atomic bomb unit" is a very loose concept, based on the yield of the obsolete Hiroshima bomb. this graph shows the yield of various atomic bombs of the USA. This meteor, with a yield of about 440 kt of TNT, would be smack in the middle of the distribution, with bombs ranging from 100 times less powerful to 100 times more powerful. So it was a very powerful explosion. It's good it happened so far up.

Re:Equivalent to the energy of 20 atomic bombs?

[Kaz Kylheku]

If this "energy" measure refers to the original kinetic energy and not the impact energy, it is very disingenuous. We could likewise say that when a car pulls over from the freeway from doing 80 mp/h, to enter a truck stop, and then is involved in a minor fender-bender in the parking lot, it had the "energy of an 80 mp/h car". But, oh, science! Much of that energy was dissipated by earlier braking along the exit way, as well as panic braking just before the accident.

Re:Equivalent to the energy of 20 atomic bombs?

[Anonymous Coward]

THANK YOU, Edward Snowden, for courageously doing what was right! -- Gratefully yours, ISIS

Re:Equivalent to the energy of 20 atomic bombs?

[Rick in China]

"it is very disingenuous"
Disagree completely.

The verbiage is very clear. When the meteor exploded, it had a kinetic energy measurement. That measurement was approximated to equivalent of 20 or so Hiroshima equivalent atomic bombs. The meteor itself, as a whole, did not impact the earth - as a car would have impacted (whatever) in an accident -- instead, it exploded into many smaller pieces, some of which made it to Earth. To match your analogy, the meteor's explosive kinetic energy is a meaningless measurement - but rather only the individual shards that actually touched the planet matter, no? I don't get that. When cars brake, they also don't have farther reaching explosive qualities that impact thousands of people..even given the remoteness of the explosion.

The meteor exploded far enough above the planet, seemingly due to the composition and changes it experienced during entry, that it did not cause catastrophic damage..but, it could have had it exploded some kilometers later. I don't see how it is disingenuous when they clearly state that the measurement is *of the explosion*, not *of the impact at Earth touchdown*, and if you have trouble making that articulation in the verbiage I don't have much else to say on the topic.

Re:Equivalent to the energy of 20 atomic bombs?

[vandamme]

I've been to Managua, and I prefer Detroit. If it blew up the city, it would be an improvement.

Short notice

[Art3x]

Is anyone else unnerved by the short notice of passing asteroids? Anyone who finds themselves assuming that some agency has this taken care of?

On the one hand, I say, "Hey, it's 2014. We should see these months or even years ahead of time. Furthermore, we should have an asteroid defense system. Don't ask me exactly what. But it's 2014, man."

On the other hand, I say, "Hey's it's only sixty feet wide. How could we possibly have seen it much sooner in the whole sky surrounding the earth? We're not so advanced. I don't care if it's the twenty-first century. Look at global warming, how long it took to uncover Osama Bin Laden. Look at Windows, systemd, Slashdot beta ;)

Re:Short notice

[khallow]

Is anyone else unnerved by the short notice of passing asteroids?

No, because we're getting early warning of near inconsequential asteroids. That indicates that we have decent early warning. You do want to know that at least you're detecting this stuff before it hits.

Wow, two on the same day!

[Black Parrot]

Or is the same asteroid making two passes?

Re:Wow, two on the same day!

[Anonymous Coward]

Only Timothy forgot to attach the HP logo to this story.

Matter of coice

[dimethylxanthine]

This one decided it would rather spend another aeon in the cold of space alone than land in Russia.

Sorry

[drinkypoo]

My comet materia was lost

Kind of dissaspointed

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping for a direct hit on either Auckland NZ as it would have dramatically improved the average IQ in NZ

are confident Pitbull will not strike the planet.

[koan]

Then why did you name it pitbull? "don't worry he won't bite"

use the metric system.

[Anonymous Coward]

the whole world does.