Originally posted by JohnnyK: I would want to know. I think we are safe though.. don't freakin panic from Internet rumours... Any I believe there is lots we could do about. The earths gravity isn't exactly enormous. We could easily blast it I think.
what exactly do you mean by "blast it" ? you mean like missles or bombs? if so, then it would be like mack10 said. the dust would pretty much ruin the planet. at first when i found out about it i was pretty scared,but for some reason i am not to freaked out about it anymore.
meteor size of a watermellon, maybe taking out a house? hate to tell you but traveling at tens of thousands of mile per hour, it would take out lots more than a house, more like a city block or more. its not like throwing it off a roof.
Didnt any of you watch the asteroids/parts off a comet hit Jupiter? Each piece made explosions on the surface thousands of miles across. I thought I read that the largest piece left an impact that was 12,000 miles across. That would have obliterated the earth, eliminated it completely.
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08:08 AM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
I was watching CNN last night, and they had a quick blip about the asteroid that may destroy the Earth in 90 or so years. I was then on a BBC channel (direct TV-gotta love it) and they had a quick blip about the meteor the other day that just missed us. They said scientists think that it is also a chunk off from a bigger one that may pass very close to earth in a few months. Then went on to yack about some new parliment ruckus like the Meteor news was as common as flu announcements.
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09:31 AM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
Tumbling Stone is a scientific magazine about NEOs (Near Earth Objects), asteroids and comets, and the hazard of Earth impact. TS is a scientific monthly publication by Spaceguard Foundation and NEODyS where you can find articles by researchers about NEOs science and related topics (comets, asteroids and their orbital and physical characteristics, meteors, meteorites, craters, impacts, space missions to NEOs and much, much more!).
Didn’t we say that….? We wrote in the past that the record number of accesses to TS was surely due to 2002EM7, an asteroid that has passed very close to us, raising the media fever even if it was too small to cause any damage. If the media had checked with the appropriate sources they could have discovered that, actually, there is an other object, half a mile long (1 Km) that is quite more interesting : it has 1 probability on 9300 to impact in 2049. Read the articles here, on Tumbling Stone and stay tuned with us! Nanni Riccobono - Editor of T.S. http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/index.html"
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12:53 PM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
"And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea..."
Welcome to the Asteroid Doomsday Countdown Clock! There are only . . . 9700 days left until impact!
On Tuesday, March 10, 1998, Brian Marsden, Director of the International Astronomical Union's central telegram bureau in Cambridge, Mass., announced that celestial object 1997XF, a 1 to 2 mile wide asteroid, could pass within 30,000 miles of Earth in October of the year 2028. One day later, scientists from NASA's Jet propulsion Laboratory announced that the asteroid would instead miss Earth by 500,000 to 600,000 miles. JPL's Paul Chodas said that the chance of it impacting the Earth was "...so unlikely as not to worry about." We're talking about knowing exactly where something's going to be 1385 weeks from now! How confident are you about predicting the exact location of a speeding space object 318 months away? Think about it.
Nevertheless, 1997XF is coming. We may not know to where, but at least we know when.
If you'd like to know more, here's a few links to get you started.... An asteroid large enough to have flattened a city buzzed Earth March 8, 2002 (MSNBC.com) and was not seen until after it flew by.
An asteroid 1000 feet across missed Earth by only 520,000 miles Monday, 1/8/02. What could we have done about it? Not much.
Cosmic Cannon: How an Exploding Star Could Fry Earth (www.space.com) Some scientists say the planet could be toast. Drilling into the Chicxulub crater. ...where the impact of an asteroid or comet 65 million years ago may have doomed the dinosaurs.
NASA's NEAR spacecraft touches down on Eros! (nssdc) Read the latest reports from Space.com here!
Newly discovered asteroid has a 1-in-500 chance of striking the Earth in 2030! This is not 1997XF folks. As posted on www.space.com 11/3/00
Fresh evidence for "Big Whack". New studies bolster theory that the moon formed from collision with rogue planet. (Space.com)
Fifth Worst Mass Extinction Linked to Asteroid Impact (Space.com) "They call them the Big Five -- a handful of unfathomable mass extinctions over the past 500 million years, each estimated to have obliterated somewhere between 50 and 96 percent of all species on the planet."
Asteroid population count slashed! Estimate cut in half! This is good news!
Rise of Dinosaurs Tied to Cosmic Collision 251 million years ago, the worst extinction ever left the planet bereft of plants and animals (www.space.com)
Catastrophes and Human Evolution Observations and interpretations on the future of Man (Space Daily)
Scanning the skies for speeding rocks from outer space. (NY Times)
The Persistent Problem of Asteroid 1999 AN10 (The New Scientist)
Deep Impact Comet Mission (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Space Guard (UK) A Brief History of Space Guard
The Near-Earth Tracking Program (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards (NASA, Ames Space Science Division)
Double Whammy . . . An asteroid striking land would be catastrophic, but far worse if it crashed into the sea. (Scientific American)
Bang and Splat! A supercomputer anticipates the catastrophic impact of a giant comet (Scientific American)
The original reports on asteroid 1997XF...
Earth's Date With Danger (The first reports in Newsday concerning asteroid 1997XF)
NASA: Asteroid Will Miss Us by 600,000 Miles (The retraction )
All-clear after asteroid scare. (How the BBC reacted)
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02:04 PM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
After NASA announced that this would not hit the Earth, soon after they released what some are calling a retraction:
>>>>>>>>>>>
NASA: Asteroid Will Miss Us by 600,000 Miles
UPDATE Thursday, March 12, 1998
The International Astronomical Union (IAU), which keeps track of such objects, said late Wednesday that an asteroid would pass very close to the Earth in the year 2028 and might conceivably hit it.
Paul Chodas and a colleague then took a second look at the data on 1997 XF11, which was first spotted last December.
To be sure it would miss, they went through old photographs that astronomers had taken of the sky, some of which showed the asteroid, which no one noticed at the time.
"We re-did the analysis and the close approach distance moved out 600,000 miles, which is 2-1/2 times the lunar orbit," Yeomans said in a telephone interview.
The IAU appealed for astronomers to have a look at the asteroid, dubbed 1997 XF11, and see if they could get more information about its size and orbit.
NASA spokesman Don Savage said a team at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) would do just that.
UPDATE:
Chodas said just to be sure, the JPL team was not saying XF11 would definitely not collide with the Earth."
>>>>>>>>> humor.funny Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2002 19:30:01 PST
NASA's NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft has just collided with the asteroid Eros. Surprisingly, the spacecraft was able to continue transmitting after the impact.
Tragically, all the dinosaurs on board the spacecraft were wiped out in the asteroid collision.
Originally posted by JohnnyK: No, the dust would burn up. So maybe a few peoples houses would be hit with meteorites the size of watermellons.. beats the alternative.
Sorry my friend... 3 words: "Conservation of Matter."
Millions of tons of small rocks will put a good haze over our dear planet. Remember that volcano that erupted a few years ago? The average temperature fell like 3º for 2 years. It'll be along those lines.
My point, though, is that we'd be better off that way. With the small chunks, there will be far less traumatic damage (and that much less resulting dust). All we'd have to do is bunker down for the resulting mini-iceage.
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03:26 PM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
Top Stories Friday - Apr. 5, 2002 Spacecraft debris could hit Earth within days
Friday, April 5, 2002 Top stories
Portions of a spacecraft from a failed 1996 mission could fall back to Earth between Friday and Tuesday, according to NASA predictions. The space agency could not pinpoint the exact time and place. NASA's High Energy Transient Experiment (HETE) was launched in November 1996 to study gamma-ray bursts -- frequent flashes of high energy that cross the universe. The joint Argentine-U.S. project failed when the spacecraft did not detach from the final stage of the Pegasus rocket that launched it into space. The spacecraft, with the third stage still attached to it, weighs 1,177 pounds (535 kg). NASA expects that most of the spacecraft will burn up as it falls through the atmosphere. But four stainless steel batteries weighing a total of 33 pounds (15kg) could survive, NASA said Thursday. Where the debris may strike is unknown. NASA has had no contact with the failed spacecraft since 1996, and has no means of controlling or plotting the re-entry. The agency's rough estimate of re-entry is 7 a.m. EDT Sunday, but it warns that this estimate could be off by as much as 48 hours in either direction. Working with U.S. Space Command, the quasi-military agency that monitors the location of spacecraft and space junk, NASA will post updated information at www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20020401hetereenter.html. According to U.S. Space Command, there are nearly 3,000 satellites and spacecraft now in orbit around Earth, carrying out communications, remote sensing, and other functions. Some estimates on the amount of loose space junk -- debris from space and satellite operations -- exceed 100,000 pieces near Earth or orbiting the planet. After the failed 1996 mission, the HETE project was reconstituted, and the replacement spacecraft HETE-2 was launched in 2000. While much is still unknown about gamma ray bursts, recent research has suggested they may originate from supernovas, or dying stars.
>>>>>>> Who needs a meteor.
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03:47 PM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
Special to space.com on the impending possible hit by an asteroid within the next few months.
05 April 2002
Imagine: NASA scientists announce they have detected a 10-mile-wide asteroid on a collision course with the Earth. They calculate it will hit Southeast Asia in two months. There is no chance of a Bruce Willis scenario like from the movie "Armageddon" being sent on a beefed-up space shuttle to blow up the asteroid. We will have to ride out the impact on Earth.
The Tunguska event in 1908 flattened 800 square miles of Siberian forest -- and the object didn't even reach the ground. This impact is going to be what is called a global killer. The world economy grinds to a halt as people take to the hills. Anarchy sets in, civilization breaks down. Accusations fly over the lack of warning -- where was Spaceguard, the proposed international search effort for large asteroids? People in Brazil feel less vulnerable than most of the world's population. They are on the opposite side of the Earth from the predicted impact point. But one hour after the impact Brazilians notice some brilliant meteors. Then more meteors. Soon the sky gets brighter and hotter from the overwhelming number of meteors. Within a few minutes trees ignite from the fierce radiant heat. Millions of fragments of rock, ejected into space by the blast, are making a fiery return all over the planet. Only people hiding underground survive the deadly fireworks display. Within three hours, however, massive shock waves from the impact travel through the Earth's crust and converge all over including on Brazil at the same time. The ground shakes so violently that the ground fractures and molten rock spews from deep underground. Maybe Brazil wasn't the best place to be after all. The survivors of the firestorms, tsunami and massive earthquakes emerge to a devastated landscape. Within a few days the Sun vanishes behind a dark thick cloud -- a combination of soot from the firestorms, dust thrown up by the impact and a toxic smog from chemical reactions. Photosynthesis in plants and algae ceases and temperatures plummet. A long, sunless Arctic winter seems mild compared to the new conditions on most of the planet. After a year or so the dust settles and sunlight begins to filter through the clouds. The Earth's surface starts warming up. But the elevated carbon dioxide levels created by the fires (and, by chance, vaporization of huge quantities of limestone at the impact site) results in a runway greenhouse effect. Those creatures that managed to survive the deep freeze now have to cope with being cooked. Many species of plants and animals vanish. The few hundred thousand human survivors find themselves reverting to a Stone Age existence.
[This message has been edited by Fiero5 (edited 04-05-2002).]
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04:12 PM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
This is the impact point marked in a red circle from the asteroid that hit Earth millions of years ago and wiped out the age of Dinosaurs. It impacted so hard that it slammed itself 22 miles deep into the Earths crust.
This is a satalite image of the changed heat radiation effect from a recent "small" meteor hit into our atmosphere a few years ago.
[This message has been edited by Fiero5 (edited 04-05-2002).]
the last sentance of that article destroys its credibility. If the earth is plummeted with massive destruction, then science technology and knowledge is not wiped out with it.
A nuclear reactor can supply power for heat light and cooling - water can be purified - plants can be grown indoor - once the initial shock wave has hit then rebuilding can begin immediately.
To say that mankind would be thrown back to the stone age is foolish speculation. The author obviously never read Robinson Curusio.
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04:28 PM
Mach10 Member
Posts: 7375 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Jan 2001
Originally posted by Ken Wittlief: the last sentance of that article destroys its credibility. If the earth is plummeted with massive destruction, then science technology and knowledge is not wiped out with it.
A nuclear reactor can supply power for heat light and cooling - water can be purified - plants can be grown indoor - once the initial shock wave has hit then rebuilding can begin immediately.
To say that mankind would be thrown back to the stone age is foolish speculation. The author obviously never read Robinson Curusio.
It thought the First word "Imagine" destroyed it's credibility!
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04:38 PM
LoW_KeY Member
Posts: 8081 From: Hastings, MI Registered: Oct 2001
Old news.. we should've been hit by one long ago my old science teacher told us, back in 9th grade, and there was one back then that was supposed to come close to hitting us.. if it does so be it
I just gotta know when so I can go do some crazy stuff in my car
I think that if a meteor were to come close to us we could take it out easly.
The earth has many more "NUKES" than you would think. The problem would be getting them in space in time to intercept the meteor.
We have "NUKES" MANY MANY MANY times more powerful of the ones we droped on Japan! I've heard of 500mega tone bombs made in the USSR. I would bet we have some just as (or more) powerful in a warehouse somewhere.
There would be two choices, First we could shoot near it and "NUDGE" it away from us. The second would be to Nuke it!
Some people say breaking it up into small pieces would do MORE DMG! I disagree totally. WHY? First when you nuked it say 5% of it would be obliterated and say another 10% would be knocked off corse and miss us. Next when it entered the atmosphere the 1,000,000,000 of chunks would have MUCH more surface area and say another 10% would go up in smoke That's 25%+ less mass right there. Lastly most of the remaining chunks would hit the water. Now some think that this would create a huge titalwave right? Well maybe if a huge one hit but if thousands of small ones hit the watter and created lots of small waves "I" think they would tend to cancel eachother out resaulting in much smaller dmg to costal towns.
This is only my theory but I'v thought about this long and hard.
PS.. Sorry for my spelling I broke my finger earlier and don't want to type anymore
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01:41 AM
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System Bot
Don_Chi_Chi Member
Posts: 1371 From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, CANADUH Registered: Sep 2001
The nuke option MAY be a possibility, but I for one am not exactly sure how a nuclear bomb would react to space. Secondly, sure you could "blow the little ones up" with a few bombs, but much bigger and it may be impossible. Besides being an immense slab of rock, we have no idea what these may be made of. For all we know it is some kind of matter forged in the depths of space over billions of years and may be tougher to crack than we can imagine.
------------------ Wanted: MK3 Toyota Supra, any leads welcome!
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01:47 AM
Mach10 Member
Posts: 7375 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Jan 2001
Originally posted by 87FieroGTx: I think that if a meteor were to come close to us we could take it out easly.
The earth has many more "NUKES" than you would think. The problem would be getting them in space in time to intercept the meteor.
We have "NUKES" MANY MANY MANY times more powerful of the ones we droped on Japan! I've heard of 500mega tone bombs made in the USSR. I would bet we have some just as (or more) powerful in a warehouse somewhere.
There would be two choices, First we could shoot near it and "NUDGE" it away from us. The second would be to Nuke it!
Some people say breaking it up into small pieces would do MORE DMG! I disagree totally. WHY? First when you nuked it say 5% of it would be obliterated and say another 10% would be knocked off corse and miss us. Next when it entered the atmosphere the 1,000,000,000 of chunks would have MUCH more surface area and say another 10% would go up in smoke That's 25%+ less mass right there. Lastly most of the remaining chunks would hit the water. Now some think that this would create a huge titalwave right? Well maybe if a huge one hit but if thousands of small ones hit the watter and created lots of small waves "I" think they would tend to cancel eachother out resaulting in much smaller dmg to costal towns.
This is only my theory but I'v thought about this long and hard.
PS.. Sorry for my spelling I broke my finger earlier and don't want to type anymore
2 things: First of all, I really doubt you could smash a big one with any number of nukes. The mass of the bigger ones is incredible. All the nukes in the world would barely nudge one over a fraction of a degree. That fraction would be useful, but only if the rock was hundreds of millions of miles away...
And what happens if you manage to knock it closer?
The other thing, is that the damn thing will be moving so fast, that the area of effect will spread out... Making a direct hit even MORE likely.
Our atmosphere won't tolerate that kind of pounding. It would be a catastrophe regardless. The difference would be that there'd be smaller craters instead of a big one. Billions would still die, but those left would have a better shot.
The OTHER thing you have to remember is that after pummelling the rock into powder with nukes, you create an even WORSE problem. Instead of trillions of tons of inert rock possibly smashing into our atmosphere, you suddenly have trillions of tons of RADIOACTIVE crushed rock that WILL smash into our atmosphere.
When things "burn up" in the atmosphere, they don't go away... They just get broken into smaller bits.
No, you could easily nudge it out of the way with a large bomb.. The earths pull isn't exactly humongous (and I am reading a book right now which sort of deals with these types of things)..
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03:38 PM
Mach10 Member
Posts: 7375 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Jan 2001
Originally posted by JohnnyK: No, you could easily nudge it out of the way with a large bomb.. The earths pull isn't exactly humongous (and I am reading a book right now which sort of deals with these types of things)..
Considering that a large nuclear blast yeilds relatively low KINETIC energy (especially in a vacuum) I don't see how a measelly 50 megaton bomb could alter the path of a 11km wide asteroid... Most of the energy is thermal... Part of the huge shockwaves caused by terrestrial explosions are caused by the rapid expansion of super-heated gasses... You won't have that advantage inthe vacuum of space...
well depends on what the object is made of ice,dirt, rock or nickle-iron most are thought to be a rubble pile stuck together by ice or not at all look at how the jupiter one broke up into many parts a few years ago.
BTW to make a H-bomb BIGGER just add water [heavy water+stuff]= more boom
and both cars and people have been hit by small bits woman broke an arm and old amc had a big dent in trunk but both cases were not a big disaster
------------------ Question wonder and be wierd
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04:56 PM
Don_Chi_Chi Member
Posts: 1371 From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, CANADUH Registered: Sep 2001
Originally posted by ray b: well depends on what the object is made of ice,dirt, rock or nickle-iron most are thought to be a rubble pile stuck together by ice or not at all look at how the jupiter one broke up into many parts a few years ago.
Are you talking Shoemaker-Levi 9? Those pieces broke up up, sure but when they hit Jupiter, their exposions would have encompassed the Earth many times over.
[This message has been edited by Don_Chi_Chi (edited 04-06-2002).]
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05:14 PM
87FieroGTx Member
Posts: 2630 From: Bath, New York, USA Registered: Jun 2001
You people do realise that Jupiter is a MUCH bigger target, don't you? (Like several hundred times the size of earth)
------------------ The Black Beauty (85 GT) - Bustedato (86 SE, Parts car) Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things AOL IM: KSSouter MSN IM: I_R_Sootah@hotmail.com
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06:03 PM
rogergarrison Member
Posts: 49601 From: A Western Caribbean Island/ Columbus, Ohio Registered: Apr 99
You guys been watching too many sci fi movies. There are not enough bombs on earth to do anything to it if its very big. Were talking trying to stop a semi truck with some firecrackers. And most meteors are made of primarily iron ore. Thats not a very liteweight substance. pick up a wheel weight and imagine that as big as the Superdome.
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06:12 PM
Mach10 Member
Posts: 7375 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Jan 2001
Try along the lines of as big as a mid-sized town.
But yeah, in 900 years, we will be more than equipped to deal with such an item.
In the meantime, if you look outside in Winnipeg Manitoba, the sky looks EXACTLY like it would if a meteor DID hit. This awful muddy sh&&-brown >:\
If it's less than a km across, I think our nukes (well, the world's) could blast it apart.
After that, just keep slamming warheads into the middle of the cloud to further dissipate it...
But you STILL need to deal with the resulting fallout...
Have they build a Hydrogen Bomb (not FFF) bigger than 50 megatons, yet? I know the ruskies had a 60Mt Fission-Fusion-Fission bomb. Very big, and HORRENDOUSLY dirty.
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06:27 PM
PFF
System Bot
Don_Chi_Chi Member
Posts: 1371 From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, CANADUH Registered: Sep 2001
Originally posted by Sootah: You people do realise that Jupiter is a [b]MUCH bigger target, don't you? (Like several hundred times the size of earth)
[/B]
Yeah, and so were most of the asteroids that hit Jupiter a few years ago. We get somoked off by one of them and there'd be nothing left. Not like we wouldnt have at least some warning though.
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08:26 PM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
I am glad to see that some of you can read. (I am being sarcastic) Or are you all hanging on the 900 years from now one so you can sleep better at night? Whether or not we have one coming at us, near us or way out by a few thousand miles in a few months is sketchy at best on that one anyway. I don't know if the one Mr. Merbach here at the school was saying NASA has been tracking is the one the article stated was going to be here in a few months, or the one that is going to be here in 26 years. I guess we will know more by this summer?
However, it is a FACT that in only 26 years from now 1997XF, a 1 to 2 mile wide asteroid, could collide with Earth or at least pass close enough to Earth in October of the year 2028 to cause us Earthlings real trouble. Just think if it didn't hit Earth but instead hit the Moon? Sure, we can make an attempt to blow it up or at least try and knock it away by a rocket with nukes or something. Seeing how well our technology works in a clutch situation in the past ten years or so, I sure hope that our great government will have a back up plan LOL. I don't know about you, but unless I get hit by a car or get terminal cancer or something, I should still be alive in 26 years. And even if I am not around, my children and possible grandchildren will be. Just think for a moment. Many of us with our kids could witness the end of our race. We with our children and they with their children could actually be alive to see mankind become extinct like the Dinosaurs millions of years before us. Would make for a great Steven Spielberg movie, huh? Just some food for thought.
OK, you can all go back to the 900 years from now one if you want
It may not be as familiar right now as the sunburn index or the pollen count, but we could all soon take a close interest in the Torino scale. Devised by a US professor, it assigns a number to the likelihood that an asteroid will collide with the Earth. A zero means you can go back to sleep; a 10 will very definitely ruin your day.
Professor Richard Binzel explains how the Torino scale works. Richard Binzel, a professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has worked on the idea for the last five years. He created the scale to help scientists, the media and the public assess the potential danger of asteroids and comets which scientists sometimes refer to as near-Earth objects (NEOs).
The Torino Impact Hazard Scale, to give it its full title, carries the name of the Italian city in which it was adopted at a workshop of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in June.
Unnecessary alarm
Binzel hopes the scale will end the sensationalism that currently seems to surround the reporting of NEOs.
"Scientists haven't done a very good job of communicating to the public the relative danger of collision with an asteroid," he said. "Scientist-astronomers who are going to be confronted with this should have some means of clearly communicating about it so as to clearly inform but not confuse or unnecessarily alarm the public."
Many believe an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. The IAU announced on Thursday that it had officially endorsed the use of the scale.
"What I find especially important about the Torino impact scale is that it comes in time to meet future needs as the rate of discoveries of near-Earth objects continues to increase," said Hans Rickman, IAU assistant general secretary.
"The Torino scale is a major advance in our ability to explain the hazard posed by a particular NEO," said Carl Pilcher, science director for solar system exploration in the Nasa Office of Space Science in Washington, D.C. "If we ever find an object with a greater value than one, the scale will be an effective way to communicate the resulting risk."
The Torino scale works on different levels of complexity for scientists and the public. It takes into account the speed and size of the NEO and its trajectory compared with that of the Earth. NEOs will be given not only a number but a colour coding as well.
Global catastrophe
A zero, in the white zone, means that the object has virtually no chance of colliding with the Earth or that the object is so small it would disintegrate into harmless bits if it passed through the Earth's atmosphere. A red 10 means that the object will definitely hit the Earth and have the capability to cause a "global climatic catastrophe."
An asteroid bigger than a mile across might hit Earth once every 100,000 to one million years Close encounters in the green, yellow and orange zones with "scores" from one to seven are categorised as "events meriting careful monitoring" to "threatening events." Certain collisions fall in the red zone, with values of eight, nine or 10, depending on whether the impact energy is large enough to be capable of causing local, regional or global devastation.
No asteroid identified up to this point has ever made it out of the green zone by having a scale value greater than one.
"We do have celestial object 1997XF, a 1 to 2 mile wide asteroid that may come very close to Earth around the fall of 2028. We are just now looking into where on the new Torino scale we want to put 1997XF." When Professor Binzel was asked if 1997XF could be the first to move us out of the green zone, he replied a very quick-"Absolutely it could!".
Space-borne fragments the size of sand constantly bombard the Earth. Objects the size of a small car will hit the planet a few times a year. Scientists calculate that an asteroid bigger than a mile across might hit once every 100,000 to one million years. Such an event would now carry a red 10 on the Torino scale."
"New European Centers to Monitor coming Asteroid Threat
By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 07:00 am ET 07 January 2002 UK Researchers to Study New Asteroid Threat
Britain Says It Is Taking The Latest Asteroid Impact Threat Seriously by Recommending A Multi-Million Dollar Asteroid-Protection Program.
It has been stated by NASA and the scientific community that asteroid discoveries may quickly outpace our ability to assess the threat to Earth.
NASA has recently trimmed down the Arecibo Budget and has said that other organizations should support an asteroid watch.
A mounting stack of evidence suggests that asteroids and comets are the leading cause of terrestrial death, delivering immensely fatal blows that wipe the slate of life frighteningly close to clean in remarkably rapid fashion.
Canadian space and defense agencies are considering construction of a small space telescope to detect possible Earth-whacking asteroids and train the military to track satellites in high orbits.
To improve knowledge and raise public awareness about the threat of an asteroid smacking planet Earth, two separate facilities were announced recently in the UK.
The Comet and Asteroid Information Network (CAIN) launched Jan. 1 and is managed by the International Spaceguard Information Center in Wales.
CAIN will pool information and research efforts of at least 9 universities and institutions, including the Armagh Observatory. The non-governmental consortium is expected to be a vocal proponent of increased international funding for research into detecting and tracking objects that could pose a risk to the planet.
1997XF asteroid is currently on a possible collision course with Earth and the scramble is on to develop a safe and effective defense against this oncoming threat. Scientists also cite past impacts, such as the one thought to have led to the demise of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, as evidence that civilization ought to prepare itself for the inevitable.
In a separate move, the British government announced it would open an Information Center on Near Earth Objects (NEOs) this spring, following through on plans spelled out nearly a year ago.
The governmental center, which will operate out of National Space Science Center in Leicester, will educate the public about asteroids and comets. It also aims to "analyze the potential threat from NEOs" that might hit Earth.
This threat "has been an issue of increased international interest and concern over recent years," said Science Minister Lord Sainsbury. "By setting up an information center we are helping the UK play a full and prominent role in an area that requires international action."
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01:55 PM
rogergarrison Member
Posts: 49601 From: A Western Caribbean Island/ Columbus, Ohio Registered: Apr 99
Just watch or tape The Learning Channel tonite at 9pm EDT. Will show what can happen if an asteroid hits us. The scientists on that are probably better judges than any of us.
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01:59 PM
Fiero5 Member
Posts: 8882 From: Arecibo, PR Registered: Jun 2000
Electronic Telegraph International News Friday 13 March 1998 Issue 1022 Asteroid may spell doom for human civilisation By Aisling Irwin, Science Correspondent
AN asteroid capable of destroying civilisation may be on a collision course with Earth, astronomers said yesterday.
The asteroid will pass very close to Earth in 30 years' time. If it hits, the collision will be at 6.30pm GMT on Thursday, Oct 26 2028.
Don Yeomans, of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who is viewed by many as the world's leading expert on planetary orbits, said that they are watching this very closely.
Astronomers worldwide are now focusing their sites on this new oncoming asteroid. The asteroid, named 1997 XF11, could also possibly zoom past us at a distance as far out as 30,000 miles - an eighth of the distance to the Moon.
"This is big," said Brian Marsden, of the International Astronomical Union, which announced the discovery of XF11 yesterday. "We have never had experience of anything this big. The chance of an actual collision is still questionable, but one that is not entirely out of the question."
Benny Peiser, a specialist in the effects of cosmic debris at Liverpool John Moores University, said: "The effect of a one-mile-wide object hitting the Earth would be catastrophic on a global scale. It would not necessarily lead to the extinction of animals or humans but it would have a tremendous environmental impact."
Dr Peiser, a member of the pressure group Spaceguard UK which wants an international monitoring programme to spot dangerous comets and asteroids, said: "I hope that this asteroid will not hit Earth. But a collision with one of that size would wipe out civilisation as we know it. We would regress to the level of the Dark Ages. There could be massive earthquakes produced by the energy yielded by such an impact. If it hit one of the oceans, which is likely, it would trigger tidal waves which would most certainly wipe out the coastal regions in that part of the world. An enormous amount of soil and dust would be sent into the atmosphere which could trigger a cosmic winter lasting a prolonged time.
"Most people would be killed not by the impact itself, but by the knock-on effects. There would be a complete collapse of society and the abandonment of agricultural settlements. It's inevitable that at some point in our history a large object will impact. It's just a question of time."
An asteroid the size of 1997 XF11 colliding with the Earth at more than 17,000mph would explode with the energy of almost two million Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs.
Dr Marsden said that the next five years should be spent establishing definitively whether the asteroid is going to hit Earth. If it is, there will still be 25 years in which to act.
There would be two principal courses of action. We could launch a nuclear bomb timed to explode beside XF11 when it is hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth. The force of a nuclear explosion would nudge the asteroid just an inch out of its path and this distortion would amplify over the years into a path that would miss Earth with a comfortable margin. One obstacle to this approach is an international treaty banning the use of nuclear weapons in space.
Alternatively, humans could establish a base on the Moon from which to blast the asteroid with a strong laser beam, chipping tiny bits off it and distorting its path.
If XF11 does not hit Earth, and it is a clear night, it will pass over Europe and people will be able to watch it soar from north-west to south-east over a couple of hours.
Astronomers described yesterday how the mile-wide object was first spotted by Jim Scotti, an astronomer in Arizona, on Dec 6. At first, scientists thought that it would pass Earth at a huge distance. Then, over the next 14 days, more observations were made and the calculations yielded narrower and narrower margins between it and Earth. By February, they were predicting a 500,000-mile pass.
A month later, new observations extended the graph of the asteroid's orbit and the margin suddenly shrank to 30,000 miles. "It was amazingly close," said Dr Marsden. "We have had small objects come within under 70 miles of Earth but those were tiny."
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena yesterday confirmed the current calculations but predicted a greater gap, of 45,000 miles. As it get's closer however, these figures could shrink considerably. The Moon is about 250,000 miles away.
Dr Marsden issued a plea to astronomers to try to catch traces of the asteroid before it fades over the sun's horizon in two months' time, after which there will be no more information about for about 20 months.
In early 2000 it will be visible through moderate-sized telescopes with electronic sensors. On Halloween night in 2002 it will be so near that even modest telescopes will be able to detect it.
The Royal Astronomical Society warned that the chance of a collision was based on uncertainties in our knowledge, not on variations in the asteroid's path. Dr Jacqueline Mitton said: "It is not something that's going to change - either the asteroid is going to hit us or it is not. It is simply that we are looking at limited data."
Edited to add the images from the article
[This message has been edited by Fiero5 (edited 04-09-2002).]
I'm gonna have to trust JPL on this one, they usually succeed (hehe, except the Ranger Missions.. snicker)... Anyways, the earths pull isn't that strong as I've said before, so if it comes close, it will not be sucked into orbit. Look at our moon, it's damn close, and it doesn't have a gravitational buldge.
[This message has been edited by JohnnyK (edited 04-09-2002).]
Any I believe there is lots we could do about. The earths gravity isn't exactly enormous. We could easily blast it I think.
