Near Miss Expected for Killer Asteroid

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Just in case the scientist turn out to be wrong, I just want to say it has been an honor and a privilege bringing you the tech news for the last decade. What? It already went by? Nevermind…I wasn’t crying…there was something in my eye.

Today, an amazing occurance happened as Asteroid 2010 GA6, an asteroid of killer proportions passed by Earth within the range of our orbiting moon. Asteroid 2010 GA6 is 71 ft. wide and had a collision occurred there would have been massive carnage but awwwwwww, breath... Asteroid 2010 GA6 buzzed by a relatively safe 223,000 miles from Earth. It came by closer than the moon's orbit but that was about it.
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Whenever I read stories about space I feel even more insignificant and small.
 
I don't think 71 ft wide is enough to doom the world...now if it was 71 MILES wide then yes that could have been bad.
 
soulpunisher said:
I don't think 71 ft wide is enough to doom the world...now if it was 71 MILES wide then yes that could have been bad.
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But at the speeds that the 71ft asteroid would be going at, isn't it still a concern?
 
soulpunisher said:
I don't think 71 ft wide is enough to doom the world...now if it was 71 MILES wide then yes that could have been bad.
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Doom the world? Probably not. But would you want it landing across the street from your house? Only if you're on vacation at the time and have a good insurance policy ;)

Either way, Apophis is/was scarier :p
 
soulpunisher said:
I don't think 71 ft wide is enough to doom the world...now if it was 71 MILES wide then yes that could have been bad.
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450 said:
But at the speeds that the 71ft asteroid would be going at, isn't it still a concern?
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According to another article from the same site:

The massive collision caused a gigantic fireball in the area around the strike, centered in the Australian Outback, and was estimated to have the force of a 500 megaton nuclear bomb. That's roughly 1,000 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb blast.
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That's still pretty devastating if it hit us.
 
The crater in Arizona was made by an nickel and iron meteorite 50 meters wide and half of the 300,000 metric tons was vaporized during its descent, before it hit the ground. Not a global disaster but I wouldn't want to be anywhere near there.
 
70% of the earth's surface is covered in water, so odds are that if this thing had hit us, it would have crashed into the ocean, having little effect.

If it did hit land, odds are it would crash somewhere without too many people, as most of the earth's land is not covered in towns and cities.
 
meme said:
70% of the earth's surface is covered in water, so odds are that if this thing had hit us, it would have crashed into the ocean, having little effect.

If it did hit land, odds are it would crash somewhere without too many people, as most of the earth's land is not covered in towns and cities.
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Pshh.. asteroids always hit NYC. Everybody knows that.
 
If it did hit water, costal cities would be effected depending on where the asteroid hit. You'd be surprised how fast waves and water moves.
 
"It's a Near Hit! When two objects actually collide it's a near miss ... *Boom*, oh look, they nearly missed." - George Carlin.

I'm not sure what 71 feet would do, but I don't think that would end the world.
 
Yes hitting the water could have easily caused a tsunami. How big it would be I have no idea, but that could have been devastating.
 
According to JPL, the relative closure velocity was 12.08km/sec with an approximate impact angle of ~75 degrees.

The effects would have depended upon the composition of the asteroid.

Check out the http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/ if you want to mess with the parameters and determine the effects -- really cool program!

For most of the calculations using the 12.08km/sec closing rate, 75 degree impact angle, 71m width, the impact energy would be <5 MT of TNT (if it was a solid iron asteroid, about 22MT). Either way, no significant fireball/air ignition/ejecta at 10km distance. You wouldn't want to be much closer, though (air blast was calculated at 95dB / 236mph / 0.55bar at this distance).
 
Did they change the definitions on me again? 22 meters is not an asteroid, it's a meteoroid.

Would it do damage? Possibly sure, as big as the Meteor Crater near Flagstaff? Not even close to that, most of it will vaporize, (can't find a composition of the meteor though), most of the energy will be released in the air, that's where you always all those "500 megatons...." references come from, it's not the same as a 500MT bomb exploded because all of that energy is at once place and goes outward, this energy is moving across the sky, it's a nice trick that the news likes to do to glorify what they hear.

That said I wouldn't want it landing on my house, 10m maybe... that'll leave a hole in my roof and I'll have a cool souvenir :)
 
Gott said:
If it did hit water, costal cities would be effected depending on where the asteroid hit. You'd be surprised how fast waves and water moves.
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Yeah, if it hit water close to shore, waves created by impact would cause huge damage.

 
lol, double fail... 71ft not meters... why the fuck do we still use such a retarded measurement system?
 
sfsuphysics said:
Did they change the definitions on me again? 22 meters is not an asteroid, it's a meteoroid..........................
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Asteroid: A relatively small, inactive body, composed of rock, carbon or metal, which is orbiting the Sun.

Meteoroid: A small particle from an asteroid or comet orbiting he Sun.
 
Azhar said:
According to another article from the same site:
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That info sounds like it was completely pulled out of his ass.

A 71 foot stone/ice sphere would have a mass of about 150,000,000Kg at a speed of 12km/s works out to around 72,000,000 Joules/Kg, for a grand total energy of around 10.8 PetaJoules of energy, or around 2.5 Megatons.

After you take into account the 99.999% of the energy that goes into friction, breaking up the rock, vaporization, etc, it's very unlikely that this asteroid would even leave a noticeable crater if it actually reach Earth.
 
12 km/sec? Wow, that's fast. At least if it was going to kill you it would happen so fast you wouldn't have time to know it. I suppose THAT is some kind of comfort.

Where the hell are our space lasers and missiles anyways? I thought we paid a bunch of taxes to get those built?

Machupo said:
lol, double fail... 71ft not meters... why the fuck do we still use such a retarded measurement system?
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World Fail. The rest of the world needs to figure it out and ditch that stupid metric system so they can understand what us Americans are talking about!!
 
Nemesis999 said:
That info sounds like it was completely pulled out of his ass.

A 71 foot stone/ice sphere would have a mass of about 150,000,000Kg at a speed of 12km/s works out to around 72,000,000 Joules/Kg, for a grand total energy of around 10.8 PetaJoules of energy, or around 2.5 Megatons.

After you take into account the 99.999% of the energy that goes into friction, breaking up the rock, vaporization, etc, it's very unlikely that this asteroid would even leave a noticeable crater if it actually reach Earth.
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I never pretended to be an astrologist and physicist lol. I don't know the math. I just saw the link with the information provided for us and posted it.

Dammit Jim, I'm a computer technician, not an astrophysicist!
 
Azhar said:
I never pretended to be an astrologist
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Logically, if we survive, isn't it a near hit? A near miss is gonna send us packing, right? :eek:
 
within the distance of the moon is pretty damn close on the cosmic scale.
 
Nemesis999 said:
That info sounds like it was completely pulled out of his ass.

A 71 foot stone/ice sphere would have a mass of about 150,000,000Kg at a speed of 12km/s works out to around 72,000,000 Joules/Kg, for a grand total energy of around 10.8 PetaJoules of energy, or around 2.5 Megatons.

After you take into account the 99.999% of the energy that goes into friction, breaking up the rock, vaporization, etc, it's very unlikely that this asteroid would even leave a noticeable crater if it actually reach Earth.
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Yeah, that "other article" was a piece of fiction detailing what a news report might look like if an asteroid hit the Earth, I doubt it was fully researched.
 
Nemisis999 has it correct.

According to this:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
which is a pretty cool impact calculator, assuming a fairly dense sedimentary rock hitting dirt...(and I put myself 100 miles away)...it's...and airburst. FAIL.


Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 161.00 km = 99.98 miles
Projectile Diameter: 21.64 m = 70.98 ft = 0.01 miles
Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 27.37 km/s = 17.00 miles/s
Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
Target Type: Sedimentary Rock

Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 5.96 x 1015 Joules = 1.42 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth is 144.4 years

Atmospheric Entry:
The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 61700 meters = 202000 ft
The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 20500 meters = 67200 ft
The residual velocity of the projectile fragments after the burst is 17 km/s = 10.5 miles/s
The energy of the airburst is 3.67 x 1015 Joules = 0.88 x 100 MegaTons.
No crater is formed, although large fragments may strike the surface.

Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.

HECK! Even 71 meters isn't a big deal!

Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 2.11 x 1017 Joules = 5.03 x 101 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 2.2 x 103years

Atmospheric Entry:
The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 61700 meters = 202000 ft
The projectile bursts into a cloud of fragments at an altitude of 2350 meters = 7720 ft
The residual velocity of the projectile fragments after the burst is 6.35 km/s = 3.95 miles/s
The energy of the airburst is 1.99 x 1017 Joules = 4.76 x 101 MegaTons.
No crater is formed, although large fragments may strike the surface.

But 71 miles...and I'm ejected by the impact and probably as a thing boiled smear of atoms on the plasma wavefront.

Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 8.78 x 1026 Joules = 2.10 x 1011 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size is longer than the Earth's age.
Such impacts could only occur during the accumulation of the Earth, between 4.5 and 4 billion years ago.

Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.

Crater Dimensions:
What does this mean?


Transient Crater Diameter: 526 km = 326 miles
Transient Crater Depth: 186 km = 115 miles

Final Crater Diameter: 1190 km = 741 miles
Final Crater Depth: 2.5 km = 1.55 miles

The crater formed is a complex crater.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 5.52e+06 km3 = 1.33e+06 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater , where its average thickness is 25.5 km = 15.8 miles

Ejecta:
What does this mean?


Your position was inside the transient crater and ejected upon impact
 
Nemesis999 said:
That info sounds like it was completely pulled out of his ass.

A 71 foot stone/ice sphere would have a mass of about 150,000,000Kg at a speed of 12km/s works out to around 72,000,000 Joules/Kg, for a grand total energy of around 10.8 PetaJoules of energy, or around 2.5 Megatons.

After you take into account the 99.999% of the energy that goes into friction, breaking up the rock, vaporization, etc, it's very unlikely that this asteroid would even leave a noticeable crater if it actually reach Earth.
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yeahthat.gif



If it would have made it all the way down. Plus to do any real damage it would have to hit or explode above a populated area and most of this planet is water.
 
mrpc9886 said:
Nemisis999 has it correct.
Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 161.00 km = 99.98 miles
Projectile Diameter: 21.64 m = 70.98 ft = 0.01 miles
Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 27.37 km/s = 17.00 miles/s
Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
Target Type: Sedimentary Rock
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Even less, GA6 is moving at 12km/s, which means about 80% less energy then calculated.
 
chiming in a little late here, but 71 feet hitting in either land or water at whatever speed that its moving at is going to ruin your day.
 
Bgrngod said:
World Fail. The rest of the world needs to figure it out and ditch that stupid metric system so they can understand what us Americans are talking about!!
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:) I dunno. I like dividing by 5 and 10 every once in a while.
 
The only reason it didn't hit the earth is because Chuck Norris scared it away.
 
So, I don't see anyone asking the most important questions.

Did the Earth's gravity change it's course? What is the orbit now? Will it hit us on next orbit?
 
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