Asteroid near miss????

I just heard this on the BBC............seems we had a "near miss" (75,000 miles) by an asteroid the size of a football field. They said if it would have hit us it would have been like 10,000 Hiroshima bombs going off.
Did anyone else hear about this?

[Dennis_Mahon]

Are you sure they weren't talking about the 1999 asteroid that everybody was worried about? I just checked the BBC website and this is the story I found:

Close shave with asteroid
Wednesday, May 19, 1999 Published at 17:16 GMT 18:16 UK

By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse
A large asteroid could miss the Earth by only 38,000 kilometres in 2027, according to new astronomical observations. This is an extremely close shave - the Moon orbits 10 times further from Earth.

The calculations suggest that an impact is not possible that year but, in theory, the Earth's gravity could perturb the asteroid's path, possibly leading to an impact in 2039.

The near-miss trajectory of a newly-discovered asteroid, called 1999 AN10, was announced in April. Now, the observational data of Australian astronomer F. Zoltowski allows calculations of just how close the asteroid may come to Earth.

Closer and closer

Astronomers at the Minor Planet Center at the US Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory used Zoltowski's work to work out an estimated approach distance for AN10 of 56,500 kilometres from Earth. The fly-by will occur on August 7, 2027.

But the closest possible distance that AN10 could come to the Earth on that day is only 38,000km.

The calculations suggest the asteroid will not impact. But the new calculations confirm the initial speculation that the asteroid might approach within the Earth's sphere of gravitational influence.

It could therefore be perturbed in such a way that it might impact some years later.

Impossible to predict

Dr Benny Peiser of Liverpool John Moore's University in England says that the chaotic behaviour of this asteroid makes it practically impossible to predict all possible approaches for more than a few decades after any close encounter.

He says the orbit will remain dangerously close to the orbit of the Earth for about 600 years.

Astronomers stress that a collision is only one of a range of possibilities for this kilometre-wide chunk of rock. If it did strike, it would cause continent-wide devastation and alter the Earth's climate.

[Dennis_Mahon]

I think this is the story you're talking about:

Thursday, 20 June, 2002, 16:29 GMT 17:29 UK
Space rock's close approach

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor


Astronomers have revealed that on 14 June, an asteroid the size of a football pitch made one of the closest ever recorded approaches to the Earth.
It is only the sixth time an asteroid has been seen to penetrate the Moon's orbit, and this is by far the biggest rock to do so.

What has worried some astronomers, though, is that the space object was only detected on 17 June, several days after its flyby.

It was found by astronomers working on the Lincoln Laboratory Near Earth Asteroid Research (Linear) search programme in New Mexico.

Catalogued as 2002MN, the asteroid was travelling at over 10 kilometres a second (23,000 miles per hour) when it passed Earth at a distance of around 120,000 km (75,000 miles).

The last time such an object is recorded to have come this close was in December 1994.

'Wake up call'

The space rock has a diameter of between 50-120 metres (160 - 320 feet). This is actually quite small when compared with many other asteroids and incapable of causing damage on a global scale.

Nonetheless, an impact from such a body would still be dangerous.

If 2002MN had hit the Earth, it would have caused local devastation similar to that which occurred in Tunguska, Siberia, in 1908, when 2,000 square kilometres of forest were flattened.

Dr Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University, UK, told BBC News Online: "Our ever increasing observational capacity is now detecting these close shaves from small objects.

"The probability is actually quite high that a Tunguska-sized object will hit us in our lifetimes."

'Bolt from the blue'

A major issue of concern centres on how late this object was picked up.

Dr John Davies, of the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, has calculated the orbit of the asteroid from the Linear data.

He concludes that the asteroid came out of the Sun and was impossible for Linear to see until one hour after its flyby of the Earth on the 14th.

Dr Davies said: "...if an asteroid were to approach close to an imaginary line joining the Earth and the Sun it would never be visible in a night-time sky and would be quite impossible to discover with normal telescopes. Its arrival would come, literally, as a bolt from the blue."

Space-based telescopes, such as Hubble and the future European Gaia spacecraft, are the only means of searching for asteroids in the daytime sky.

[Exorcist_Fist]

That is about the third unexpected near miss this year. Near being within the radius of the moon's orbit or so.

Still, if you want to talk fun and doomsday type things, check out the recent flu viruses that have been breeding in hong kong, and compare their mortality percentages with the Spanish Flu. Then think about how much faster the flu spreads these days, thanks to the modern wonder of the airplane. Then read The Stand again...

Or, do some basic research on Methane Hydrate deposits, and their affect on Global Weather trends...

Or do a bit of peaking into the Long Valley Caldera, or the Yosemite Lava Tubes, to find out about the likelihood of a supervolcano eruption...

I could go on and on...

[Senjojutsu]

Silent Dan,

Gee I didn't know you could listen to ART BELL on the radio over in Japan!?
;)

You could also read "The Pessimist's Guide to History" by Stuart Flexner. Avon Books c. 1992

A nice uplifting read of chaos and catastrophes of the human condition during our species history.

Example:

Calcutta 1737 A.D.
Hit by a cyclone and then an earthquake in the same week. 500,000+ perish

[Mike Williams]

And then there's the volcano which will cause half of Gran Canaria to fall into the ocean, creating a mega-tsunami which will devastate the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S.A. with just 7 hours notice...

Scheduled to take place sometime within the next 200 years.

Have a nice day y'all!

:D

Cheers,

Mike

[Yamantaka]

Originally posted by Senjojutsu
You could also read "The Pessimist's Guide to History" by Stuart Flexner. Avon Books c. 1992
A nice uplifting read of chaos and catastrophes of the human condition during our species history.

YAMANTAKA : Then, there's a nice and cozy book by Isaac Asimov (I can't quite remember the correct title) called something like "CHOOSE YOUR CATASTROPHE!" that describes the many ways the world could end.
Sweet dreams to y'all! :p

[Amphinon]

How does that song go...

"It's the end of the world as we know it..."