Earth almost put on impact alert

[]AC[dRuM]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3517319.stm

Its the BBC can't be a wind up!?

 

[leggy]

It was only 30m fgs. At the very worst it would have wiped out some of england for us.

 

[tRoG]

Oo err

 

[SilverHood]

And 2004 AS1? It turned out to be bigger than anyone had thought - about 500m wide.

Bit more than 30m



Still, it didn't even come close

 

[Gray]

Says at the bottom Leggy it was 500m... But hell, i aint no astrologist

 

[worMatty]

B A N G ! !

 

[Trem]

It was only 30m fgs. At the very worst it would have wiped out some of england for us.

Bastid.

 

[Uncle Sick]

But hell, i aint no astrologist

Or rather an astronomer?

 

[GekuL]

Sick is a typical Taurus

.

 

[JBP|]

well these "near misses" seem to be occuring more and more often

the only thing that worries me is that when one does finally hit no one will put out an alert because "it might just miss like the others did"


(allthough now i think about it id rather not know anyway)

 

[Brockie]

Exactly. Same reason as why the government wouldn't tell us if nuclear war was imminent. It'd do nothing but cause mass-hysteria.

 

[Darthshearer]

I was crapping myself reading the first coupld of sentances

 

[Chilly]

Exactly. Same reason as why the government wouldn't tell us if nuclear war was imminent. It'd do nothing but cause mass-hysteria.

Dig for britain imo.

 

[mank!]

Shame.

 

[leggy]

Well the story 2 days ago said 30m. I can't help it if the BBC lies (again).

500m would have been slightly worse. One of those global catastrophe affairs. Saying that, we might have been saved from the abomination that is hollyoaks.

 

[Tom]

Hate to dampen your spirits, but statistically, it will happen, and we're a bit overdue (large events like this occur approximately every 100 years or so). The last one was in 1908 in Siberia.

 

[Whipped]

well these "near misses" seem to be occuring more and more often

the only thing that worries me is that when one does finally hit no one will put out an alert because "it might just miss like the others did"


(allthough now i think about it id rather not know anyway)

Although that's probably only because we're better at spotting them now. Probably been loads of near misses inteh past 100 years we knew nothing about.

The last one was in 1908 in Siberia.

As rerferenced in Ghostbusters "The tunguska blast of 1908"

 

[Deadmanwalking]

we're a bit overdue (large events like this occur approximately every 100 years or so). The last one was in 1908 in Siberia.

Go go maths powar!!

 

[Uncle Sick]

we aer all gunna die!11

 

[Tom]

Go go maths powar!!

There have been no notable impacts in the last 95 years, but history has suggested that large impacts may occur at intervals of 100 years or less (the Tunguska asteroid is estimated to be a once-every-400-years impact).

As nothing larger than footballs has fallen on land recently, I'd say we're overdue for something a bit larger. The chances of that something falling on a populated area are, however, extremely low.

 

[old.user4556]

That would make an interesting piece of news.

Tbh, the news is dull at the moment: theres no news like bad news.

 

[Blood]

they should merge this thread with the "Whats your poo worth?" and ""I'd check my pants if I were you..."" threads

 

[Mofo8]

The Tunguska object did a hell of a lot of damage to an uninhabited bit of Siberia (800 square miles of forest destroyed), and it didn't even reach the ground - It broke up roughly 6km high in the atmosphere. It was only 50-60 metres in diameter.

According to boffins, the Earth is struck by a really big fucker every 50 to 100 million years. Evidence points to the last really big one having struck round about 65 million years ago, so statistically the next one could be anytime. That one left a 150 mile diameter crater near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico (the object is though to have been 6-10 miles wide), and fucked over the whole planet pretty good, possibly helping the dinosaurs on their way to extinction.

There's also another big one (3 to 7 miles across) that struck 251 million years ago. In that one 90% of all ocean species were wiped out and 70% of land species.

The wonderful thing is that we can do absolutely nothing about it... even if we do see one coming. Blasting an approaching comet or asteroid with nukes is probably a bad idea. You'll either end up just making it radioactive, or even worse, splitting it into fragments that are all still heading our way. Anyone remember the broken up Shoemaker-Levy comet striking Jupiter? The first fragment struck Jupiter with kinetic energy equivalent to 225,000 megatons of TNT and created a plume that rose 1000km above the surface. Fragment G struck with a force of 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (which is approximately 600 times the estimated nuclear arsenal of the world). The fireball from it rose 3000km above the surface.

If one of these size of puppies hits the Earth then it's goodbye to most life.

 

[Cyfr]

Watch Bush use this as a plot to take over Korea.

 

[ScoobyDoo{KEA}]

fuck does that mean aerosmith will be re releasing another shat song....

 

[Nos]

Well the story 2 days ago said 30m. I can't help it if the BBC lies (again).

500m would have been slightly worse. One of those global catastrophe affairs. Saying that, we might have been saved from the abomination that is hollyoaks.

At the start of the story it states that the object was estimated to be 30m in diameter, but that later on they discovered that it was actually about 500m in diameter.

Nice bit of variance there :/

 

[Frizz]

The wonderful thing is that we can do absolutely nothing about it... even if we do see one coming. Blasting an approaching comet or asteroid with nukes is probably a bad idea. You'll either end up just making it radioactive, or even worse, splitting it into fragments that are all still heading our way. Anyone remember the broken up Shoemaker-Levy comet striking Jupiter? The first fragment struck Jupiter with kinetic energy equivalent to 225,000 megatons of TNT and created a plume that rose 1000km above the surface. Fragment G struck with a force of 6,000,000 megatons of TNT (which is approximately 600 times the estimated nuclear arsenal of the world). The fireball from it rose 3000km above the surface.

If one of these size of puppies hits the Earth then it's goodbye to most life.

How can you compare Shoemaker-Levy, to an asteroid bound for Earth? They're two different things. Firstly, Jupiter is huge, thus its gravity is very much, more so. Plus S-L was broken up, because of this gravity. You can't compare gravity, with a nuclear explosion tbh (Which i think would do more damage than merely break up a ball of rock/ice, even then, the little bits would probably burn up in the atmosphere).

I did like it Armageddon though, when Paris gets annihilated.

 

[Whipped]

Of course, if we spotted a big one early enough it may be possible to push it off collision course. You'd only need to push it 1 or 2 degrees for it to miss.

Although the fact that they couldn't tell the orbit of this one or it's size makes me worry that they'd push a big one straight onto a collision course with us

 

[old.user4556]

fuck does that mean aerosmith will be re releasing another shat song....

heheh, that's my kind of humour!

 

[mr.Blacky]

well these "near misses" seem to be occuring more and more often

Well that is caus we (the world) are putting up more observation posts, and last time I saw anything about it we were just observing 5 % of everything that might hit earth. We could be minutes away from an Earth hit.

Oh and Leggy thx but if it would only mean that parts of the UK would be avected it would mean the end of Holland and me..