Surprise Asteroid Passed Really Close to Earth

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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If some of you heard a giant whoosh overhead on Friday, not to worry, it was just an asteroid passing by 37k miles from the Earth. Friday’s flyby was the closest approaches ever recorded and to make it even a bit scarier, it wasn’t spotted until two days prior to the event. Now that fact doesn’t instill much confidence at all. :D


The asteroid caught astronomers by surprise. In a recent tweet, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Near Earth Object Office (NEOO) said that "asteroids this small are hard to spot, and luckily they pose the least concern."
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Two? pssh.. no asteroid is a match for Bruce Willis, he woulda gotten rid of it just in time for Ben Afleck to do Liv Tyler.
 
Well, our object collison budget's a million dollars. That allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and beg'n your pardon sir, but it's a big-ass sky.
 
Wshmaster0 said:
Two? pssh.. no asteroid is a match for Bruce Willis, he woulda gotten rid of it just in time for Ben Afleck to do Liv Tyler.
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We already lost Bruce Willis to the great asteroid attack of 1998.
 
"Well, our object collison budget's a million dollars. That allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and beg'n your pardon sir, but it's a big-ass sky."
 
Whatever...we all got to go sometime, why worry about it?
 
I suppose I'd rather not know about the end of the world, especially if it all ends quickly in a blast or something...I mean, what can you do at that point but worry? Now, if it's small and just hits my town I'd rather know so I can move out myself and others.
 
Asteroid 2012 BX34 is small, ~11 meters/37 ft diameter. It wouldn't get through our atmosphere intact even if it dared to try.
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Wouldn't have mattered if it did. We have more and more people joining the search for Asteroids/Comets each week so I'm alright with a small one being spotted with only 2 day's notice.

A Civilization ender ( lets say a few miles across ) would be spotted well in advance.
 
Godmachine said:
Wouldn't have mattered if it did. We have more and more people joining the search for Asteroids/Comets each week so I'm alright with a small one being spotted with only 2 day's notice.

A Civilization ender ( lets say a few miles across ) would be spotted well in advance.
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A civilization ender is considered to be a 1km diameter nickel/iron death bringer. :D
 
I think we need to get pro-active on asteroid attacks and build a fleet of spaceships that goes out and find these boogers before they get close to Earth. This is what my scenario would look like..

delphi-meteor-small.gif
 
Insula Gilliganis said:
I think we need to get pro-active on asteroid attacks and build a fleet of spaceships that goes out and find these boogers before they get close to Earth. This is what my scenario would look like..

delphi-meteor-small.gif
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In your scenario humans always lose :p
 
Methadras said:
A civilization ender is considered to be a 1km diameter nickel/iron death bringer. :D
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Key words there.

http://burro.cwru.edu/stu/asteroid.html

Most asteroids that we know about (92.8%) fall into the first category, and are made of Silicates.
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The atmosphere takes care of majority of them.

5.7% are Iron-Nickel.
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And those are the ones to worry about.

http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=100

Again , the odds of a 1km Asteroid hitting the Earth : estimates for the chances of an impact in the next century are: 1 in 8600, 1 in 7100, 1 in 4800, and 1 in 4000 cascading to better and better odds.

http://funny2.com/odds.htm

Odds of fatally slipping in bath or shower: 2,232 to 1
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You are more likely to die in the next 100 hundreds from basically taking a shower :p
 
BBA said:
Whatever...we all got to go sometime, why worry about it?
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yep...

Not much we are willing/able to do about it anyhow. Besides, humans are a virus on this planet anyhow. Asteroids, Comets, Iran, Deadra... Pick you poison.
 
Godmachine said:
Key words there.

http://burro.cwru.edu/stu/asteroid.html



The atmosphere takes care of majority of them.



And those are the ones to worry about.

http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=100

Again , the odds of a 1km Asteroid hitting the Earth : estimates for the chances of an impact in the next century are: 1 in 8600, 1 in 7100, 1 in 4800, and 1 in 4000 cascading to better and better odds.

http://funny2.com/odds.htm



You are more likely to die in the next 100 hundreds from basically taking a shower :p
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I question the shower odds. Is that per shower/bath? Per year? Per lifetime?

Also, if you go by this argument there really is no reason for anyone to buy any insurance, of any kind, because the insurance company always works it out so they get a net profit. It fails to account for the consequence of such an event: people slip in the shower, probably every day. People die once in a while, it's not a big deal (especially since those who slip would probably have been more likely to die of other causes anyway). The risk of an asteroid hitting the Earth and wiping out human civilization is miniscule, but if it does happen, then we're done for.
 
only 2 days? man... we really need more advance warning, sure it may of been small... but if a death bringer was on it's way I'd want at least a weeks notice to tell my boss where to go, then have some fun pretending i'm a viking, you know... the finer things in life.
 
Insula Gilliganis said:
I think we need to get pro-active on asteroid attacks and build a fleet of spaceships that goes out and find these boogers before they get close to Earth. This is what my scenario would look like..

delphi-meteor-small.gif
Click to expand...

thats also about the display level of nasa computers.

I miss excitement about space :(
 
All I want is an hour or two notice to do my emergency bucket list. :D
 
This is why it is so important for humans to colonize other planets. We already know the sun is halfway through its life cycle and earth will be destroyed when the sun dies. Yes, this is billions of years from now, but we will need to have colonized a different solar system in order for everything we were, are, and will be to not be destroyed.
 
I don't know why they don't just blow the fuckers up.

I know I know.. instead of ONE asteroid hitting you get hundreds... but have you seen what shotgun pellets do to a piece of wood? not much... have you seen what a shotgun slug does? Blows a hole straight the fuck through.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I don't know why they don't just blow the fuckers up.

I know I know.. instead of ONE asteroid hitting you get hundreds... but have you seen what shotgun pellets do to a piece of wood? not much... have you seen what a shotgun slug does? Blows a hole straight the fuck through.
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I'm sure its much more difficult to blow up an asteroid than just blatantly saying to do so.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
I
Also, if you go by this argument there really is no reason for anyone to buy any insurance, of any kind, because the insurance company always works it out so they get a net profit.
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Somebody finally did the math. Yes, insurance by definition is a scam for most people.
 
exlink said:
I'm sure its much more difficult to blow up an asteroid than just blatantly saying to do so.
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That might be the case, but the fact remains the knee jerk response of all the "experts" on those Discovery channel shows is to say you've turned one projectile into many
 
sfsuphysics said:
That might be the case, but the fact remains the knee jerk response of all the "experts" on those Discovery channel shows is to say you've turned one projectile into many
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We have to be cautious and not make assumptions because we honestly don't know a whole lot about asteroid geology. You could 'nudge' a solid iron asteroid into a safer orbit using nuclear blasts, but that might break a carbonaceous/rock/ice conglomerate asteroid into dangerous chunks, especially if it has big chunks of iron inside.

I'd love to see an international asteroid defense program once the ISS program winds down. The US is planning on asteroid missions anyway. It would be a good stepping stone to Mars missions and would give Congress a good reason not to kill the upcoming Space Launch System like they did with the Saturn V.
 
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