I know what you’re thinking. Ol’ Uncle Dave is getting all gloom and doom again. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when the time comes!
‘Nova’ asteroid could rock your world in ’36
It wasn’t quite Chicken Little warning that the sky was falling, but astrophysicist and PBS “Origins” star Neil deGrasse Tyson yesterday warned TV writers that an asteroid is coming – very, very close to Earth.
A projected trajectory shows the asteroid, Apophis (named for the Egyptian god of death and darkness), will come very close to our planet in 2029, and have a chance of hitting Earth on its next pass in 2036.
If it hits, the impact would equal the force of 100 nuclear bombs, said Tyson, the new host of “Nova scienceNOW.” The show will devote a segment of its Oct. 3 season premiere to “doomsday asteroids.”
Tyson says we have plenty of time to act, react and reassess. “In 2029,” Tyson said, “on Friday the 13th in April, Apophis is a certainty to come closer to Earth than our communications satellites. It’ll be the largest thing to come that close in recorded history … and depending on that trajectory, will determine whether it will hit us seven years later.”
Apollo 9 astronaut Russell L. Schweickart, an advocate of organizing to prepare for such threats, said new data put the odds of a strike at 1 in 38,000. That’s still enough, he said, to take the situation seriously.
Is there good news in this asteroid doomsday scenario? Yes and no. “Apophis, if it hits, will not contribute to global warning,” Tyson predicted. “It’ll just wipe out the entire West Coast of North America.”
“If it hits, the impact would equal the force of 100 nuclear bombs,”
that’s not good, but it ain’t a dino-killer, either.
Yeah, how big was the one that killed off the Dino’s? 6 miles wide or 60? Can’t remember.
The moon was blown out of the Earth by a collision with a worldlet that came very close to destroying the Earth all together. Damn, makes you think, if Earth had been destroyed billions of years ago, would our consciousness have evolved somewhere else where carbon based molecules could have managed to replicate? I know. DEEP THOUGHTS. You know I’m a nerd for thinking about such things.
“but it ain’t a dino-killer, either.”
Yeah if it hits the west coast, we can get rid of all those Hollywood types in one swoop.
Seriously, I can see this country sitting on it hands until the last monment hoping it doesn’t hit, then rushing to address the problem and failing misribly. If we act now and take it seriously, we can put a plan in motion and have a good chance of sucess. Unfortunatly we are stuck with a 30 year POS shuttle that isn’t even safe enough for low earth orbit.
3. No, the US won’t address the problem. Perhaps China will, since by 2036 California will be a valuable point of entry to the Greater North America / Pacific Co-Prosperity Sphere. 😉
“force of 100 nuclear bombs” tells us nothing as there are many types of nucular bombs with a great range of force. Is that 100 of the smallest, 100 of the largest, somewhere in between, a mixture of sizes?
lets see…
wheres the impact, estimated??
I’ll be in my 70’s and WHAT A WAY TO GO….
A lot of people don’t realize that the Earth has been hit many more times than the Moon, only that the Moon doesn’t have erosion. But I don’t know. Is it worth the risk? I mean how much in terms of resources would it take to divert an Asteroid. Either its impossible or it might take all the resources that are available to human kind, which considering 1 in 38k is not worth it. I think I could sleep comfortably at 1 in 38k. Of course according to Quantum Mechanics, all 38k realities exist simultaneously and are equally as real.
I’m to young to die!! In fact, in 2038 I’ll still be to young to die.
NO No No no no it’s not going to hit earth!!!! Its orbit is well-known and has been calculated to an error of just a few miles at the most… but nowhere near enough for an impact! Sheesh! Don’t give the ‘crazies’ a reason to line up for the kool-aid, as least for 25 years or so…
🙂
From the Bible, book of Revelations, Chapter 4
12I watched as the Lamb broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became as dark as black cloth, and the moon became as red as blood. 13Then the stars of the sky fell to the earth like green figs falling from trees shaken by mighty winds. 14And the sky was rolled up like a scroll and taken away. And all of the mountains and all of the islands disappeared.>/i> 15Then the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy people, the people with great power, and every slave and every free person–all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. 17For the great day of their wrath has come, and who will be able to survive?”
Right. :p
This is just leftist propaganda, like global warming.
No need to worry about the time_t overflow then.
They not sure IF it’s going to hit Earth, but when it does they know where!!! – The West Coast –
BS cubed…
Why not put it to good use. The space elevator needs to be attached to an asteroid, so use this one. Just hook it when it flies past – easy !!
Just FYI, usually the standard for ‘nuclear bomb’ in this sort of comparison is the Hiroshima bomb.
As for the orbit of Apophis being well known, it’s not totally true, since asteroid orbits tend to be ‘erratic’, that is, they tend to be deflected by several factors such as solar wind, other planets or asteroid gravitational fields, etc., and therefore very hard to predict with 100% certainty.
10. “the stars of the sky fell to the earth”
nope – every word of the King James Bible is literally true, and meteors are not ‘stars.’ it has yet to be explained how globes of fusing hydrogen and helium are going to’fall’ to an Earth that is actually much, much smaller than they are. but with God, there are always possibilities.
disagree with me? wow, it must really stink not to be saved. enjoy the torments of hell, heathen.
This is not the King James Version, this is the New Living Translation (NLT). (Also this is Revelation 6:12-16, not chapter 4, my bad on the misquote.) I also would like to point out “shooting stars” are not actually stars either but asteroids. I am not saying that this is what Paul was talking about when he wrote Revalations. But at the time he wrote it, if you look at it from the point of view of a person not know bodies of space of asteroids and stars, planets, even a planet that is round and not flat, you could see how a asteroid could be mistaken as a star as it entered the sky and fell to earth. So it could be. I am not a crazy Christian Kook, who says tries to disprove science with religion. Instead I like to use science to prove Christianity. Thats all just my opinion, I may be wrong.
P.S. The text for this bible quote is from:
19. A nice response to my intemperate one.
cheers,
Revelation was written till after paul dead by other unname people. the bible was written over and over again most of the true writtens of the bible were lost in time.
Revelation was written by St. John.
Revelation 1:1, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John”.
Regardless of your belief, you should at least do the easy research before quoting.
I’ll be ninety something, and looking for (if I can still see) a grand final vista (not to be confused with the dead out of the box O/S) to celebrate my departure.
The book of Revelation or The Apocalypse of John is the last canonical book of the New Testament in the Bible. It is the only biblical book that is wholly composed of apocalyptic literature.
In the 4th century, St. John Chrysostom and other bishops argued against including this book in the New Testament canon, chiefly because of the difficulties of interpreting it and the danger for abuse.
[edited for length and boredom]
Somehow reading revelations doesnt make me feel any better, arent there any scientists in the house, that can explain the possibilities of this possibly happening.
Interesting read on this little bugger. I finally found the size of it, 1350 feet long, which isn’t species ending, unless you’re under it when it hits.
Also if it actually hit, it would be like around 880 megatons or approximately 65,000 x’s the force of the Hiroshima bomb. That certainly could ruin your day at the beach in California if thats where it hits.
It will pass us at approx. 23,000 miles in 2029, pretty damn close and will seen by the naked eye from Europe, Africa and parts of Asia. Think I’ll book my room in Cairo now.
I will reiterate what someone above alluded to. If the calculations are +/- enough that we are not sure it will hit the Earth……how do we know it will hit the West Coast of the U.S.? I too smell BS.
Saw a video: http://www.techeblog.com/?p=2488&cp=2 that goes with this.