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Asteroids colliding with Earth

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Dan26

Dan26

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A few days ago, a 150 metre chunck of rock, travelling at 36,000 kilometers per hour came within 125,000 kilometers of the Earth. That sounds like a long way away but it is incredibly close. It is about the same as the circumference of the Earth, actually.

The last time an asteroid of that size hit was in 1908, when an area in Siberia was totally destroyed. Fortunatley, there were no major cities nearby and only a few Eskimos were incinerated. The whole forest was obliterated over an area spanning several hundred kilometers.

If an asteroid like that hit in the middle of Melbourne, not only would the entre city be levelled, but everyone living in a 200 mile radius would be affected. A 2km rock, by contrast would totally change the Earth and wipe out half the species. Apparently, NASA is only aware of about 10% of the smallish rocks such as the one that just missed a few days ago.

Do any of you ever think about this? The chances of being hit in our lifetime are minimal, but the Earth WILL be hit at some stage over the next few million years. Its as inevitable as an Essendon premiership. It will happen.

What would we all do, if we found out one was heading for us?
 
This one passed within the orbit of the moon, which is too close for comfort in astronomical terms.

It was only detected after it had left our vicinity. There would be no time to kiss your arse goodbye if it hit nearby.


Some time in the next ten thousand years
A comet's gonna wipe out all trace of man
I'm bankin' on it comin' before my end of year exams
 
Yeah Dan I have thought about this at times and have been wanting to post something along the same lines as this for a few weeks now. Mainly about the ammount of time before humans will need to move on before something drastic happens along these lines.
Docker_Brat is right in that it did come between us and the Moon, thats very scary indeed.
There is a people killer out there, question is, when will it hit, and how much time do we have to get ready for it.
It is scary that we could be hit by something not even detected yet.


Also Dan, what happened in 1908 was actually a comet which didn't even get to the surface and exploded in the atmosphere
 

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Nothin' I can do about it, so I'm not really worried. Unless I can cojule Bruce Willis into really climbing into a nuclear tipped rocket... ;)

The Hitman
 
Originally posted by Dan26
A few days ago, a 150 metre chunck of rock, travelling at 36,000 kilometers per hour came within 125,000 kilometers of the Earth. That sounds like a long way away but it is incredibly close. It is about the same as the circumference of the Earth, actually.

The last time an asteroid of that size hit was in 1908, when an area in Siberia was totally destroyed. Fortunatley, there were no major cities nearby and only a few Eskimos were incinerated. The whole forest was obliterated over an area spanning several hundred kilometers.

If an asteroid like that hit in the middle of Melbourne, not only would the entre city be levelled, but everyone living in a 200 mile radius would be affected. A 2km rock, by contrast would totally change the Earth and wipe out half the species. Apparently, NASA is only aware of about 10% of the smallish rocks such as the one that just missed a few days ago.

Do any of you ever think about this? The chances of being hit in our lifetime are minimal, but the Earth WILL be hit at some stage over the next few million years. Its as inevitable as an Essendon premiership. It will happen.

What would we all do, if we found out one was heading for us?
Click to expand...

Some very suspect figures here.
The circumference of the earth is roughly 40000 kms. The moon is an average of 380000 kms away so it's doubtful if anything passed inside it.

As to what I'd do if it happened - not a lot.
 
I think you are 10 times more likely to win tatslotto than ever be hit by a meteor. But then again, I could be proven wrong...

I could win tatslotto 11 times before being destroyed :D
 
It's pretty scary, not there's not much we individually can do about one of them hitting us. I was wondering, maybe one of you guys could answer, if an asteroid of that size hit the moon would it have an significant repercussive effects on Earth or would an asteroid collision with the Moon have little or no effect on Earth, in regards gravity, tide, etc.?

I'm more scared about self-inflicted missiles than asteroids, it was only last month India and Pakistan were threatening to nuke each other, I'm more worried about about being on the receiving end of a missile sent by a madman than a missile projected from outer space.

A big asteroid will hit and devastate Earth but chances are by the time that happens humans would have already virtually nuked ourselves out of existence so it will only really effect the cockroaches and bugs still on Earth! I shouldn't be so pessimistic but it is cold this morning and I've got a sniffle! :D
 
Yes the scariest thing is that it went undetected. Or maybe it was detected but they knew they couldn't do anything, and didn't want to spread panic? I dunno, I'm feeling very cynical this morning.

I guess I'm less worried of dying along with the entire human race, or with my whole community, than I am of dying alone. Really, there's nothing that any of us can do to stop it happening, and why should we? We're not that important.
 
Good topic Dan

I think most people would just try not to worry about it because at the end of the day there is really nothing we could do about it.

There is more chance that we would die of cancer or in a road accident etc etc so really, I think worrying about it is coutner productive

It could be argued we need to do reasearch into creating somehting that could protect us from the danger but that would cost far too much money and would

A) Divert money away from other worthwile projects

B) Risk creating a supe weapon that could be used for the purpose of destroying human life rather than protecting it.


So at the end of the day I think we have to just cross our fingers and hope it doesn't happen in our lifetimes

As for our children.........well...................................
 
Ah well, **** happens.

The human race isn't invincible despite society lulling us into a sense that it is.

If an asteroid was hurtling towards Earth (thank god for one of those big planets in our solar system that stops most of them) and was going to hit the Earth, what could you do? I'd just ring everyone I love and know, say goodbye and wait the inevitable. Can't do much else really can you?

Live with it, or maybe a better saying would be, death is inevitable, deal with it.
 
Originally posted by jod23
The scariest thing about it all is that we didnt detect it until it had passed by...we found it three days after it had passed Earth.

What is NASA doing?
Click to expand...

Thats what I'd like to know. Why dosen't the government build some kind of censored/controlled rocket to blow the asteriod up at a safe distance.
And it is surprising they didn't notice it!
 

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Assuming that a major asteroid which will hit Earth in approx. 1,000 years... we won't even have a problem. Technology can beat this meanace, and if it were in 1,000 years time, we'd be advanced enough to perhaps build spaceships, have colonies and create big-ass advanced weapon systems (ie. Death Rays). Earth will finally cease to be when the sun turns into a red giant, and that is billions of years away. By then, the human race would either be extinct or evolved to a being of pure enegry. Heh... we'd probably be advanced ebough to reverse the age of the sun.

But that is a hypothetical assumption. Don't worry about asteriods... we could be destroying ourselves with a nuclear war, or a new virus that is incurable in three deacades time. ;)
 
NASA has information on Selected Near Earth Objects
Their list shows selected NEO's (whatever selected means) with close approaches to Earth in the past and to the year 2100. They say that "the probability of any of these objects hitting the Earth on these approaches is essentially zero. There are no known NEO's on a collision course with the Earth. There is a possibility that an as yet undiscovered large NEO may hit the Earth, but the probability of this happening over the next 100 years is extremely small. "

Harvard has an interesting list of NEO's which are yet to approach us:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/PHACloseApp.html
The odds look slim but what are the odds that there are twice as many asteroids as have been identified?


also:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Large Terrestrial Impact Craters

Crater Name Location Latitude Longitude Age Diameter(km)
--------------- ------------- -------- --------- -------- ---------
Vredefort South Africa 27.0 S 27.5 E 2023 300
Sudbury Canada 46.6 N 81.2 W 1850 250
Chicxulub Mexico 21.3 N 89.5 W 65 170
Manicougan Canada 51.4 N 68.7 W 214 100
Popigai Russia 71.7 N 111.7 E 35 100
Chesapeake Bay United States 37.3 N 76.0 W 36 90
Acraman Australia 32.0 S 135.5 E 590 90
Puchezh-Katunki Russia 57.1 N 43.6 E 175 80
Morokweng South Africa 26.5 S 23.5 E 145 70
Kara Russia 69.2 N 65.0 E 73 65
Beaverhead United States 44.6 N 113.0 W 600 60
Tookoonooka Australia 27.1 S 142.8 E 128 55
Charlevoix Canada 47.5 N 70.3 W 357 54
Kara-Kul Tajikstan 39.0 N 73.5 E 5 52
Siljan Sweden 61.0 N 14.9 E 368 52


Crater information from The New Solar System, Beatty et al., Cambridge, 1999.
 
Originally posted by Hoggy
I predict that the asteroid will burn up when it enters the Earth's atmosphere and it will land on the Earth the size of a Chiwowwa's head.
Click to expand...
hee hee I don't know man ...look at the size of the craters in the chart above! Am I reading that right?
 

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Great topic.

According to Stuart Gary's Starstuff program on ABC NewsRadio, it did pass within the moon's orbit.

He interviewed a couple of scientists who do think this is a real worry.

ATM there is nothing we can do, although they think it would not be that hard for us to do something. You don't need to blow up an asteroid (in fact you wouldn't want to, 'cause then you'd have lots of little bits landing instead). All you need to do is nudge it off course so it misses the earth.

One theory is to paintbomb it...seriously. A change of colour would mean it would react differently to sunlight and move at a different speed.
 
Originally posted by Fat Red
One theory is to paintbomb it...seriously. A change of colour would mean it would react differently to sunlight and move at a different speed.
Click to expand...
As long as they don't paint it red, it'll just end up going faster. ;)

Seriously though; what is more of a worry is a report in the media today that humanity is now using up the Earth's resources at a faster rate than nature can replace it.

The population of the planet is now 6 billion and still growing unabated, it appears we are headed for a disaster anyway. An asteroid might actually be some relief!
 
Originally posted by jod23
The scariest thing about it all is that we didnt detect it until it had passed by...we found it three days after it had passed Earth.

What is NASA doing?
Click to expand...

Apparently it came from behind the sun, still it really doesn't instil any confidence in me in their ability to detect them now :p

But I think If I knew I was going to die, I would have a bit party and maybe do a bit of looting.

The run down to the local airport, steal a plane, and watch the best light display/fireworks the world has ever seen :D
 
An Asteroid hitting Earth is the last thing I worry about, If a comet was coming, I would not bother with 'Deep Impact' and 'Armageddon' style rescue attempts. Just let it hit, If I die, well then I die.
 
Originally posted by clucas91
An Asteroid hitting Earth is the last thing I worry about, If a comet was coming, I would not bother with 'Deep Impact' and 'Armageddon' style rescue attempts. Just let it hit, If I die, well then I die.
Click to expand...

But that's you Chris.
We arn't all as tough as you! :D ;)
 

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