Christmas Eve: Close Approach of Asteroid

You know... if I was a less ethical ATS user I'd provide these very same links, say that they show that an asteroid will hit us on Christmas Eve (and that it is God's way of punishing us for something) and then sit back and watch the minutes of panic that would go by until one of the informed people on ats pointed out that this NEO will pass about 5 lunar distances away...

But since I am an ethical user I'll just point out that this thing is passing by and that amateur astronomers might want to check it out:

neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

www.spaceweather.com...

Eh, since I'm the first to reply, you'd get an almost immediate response that it passes far, far away from us (5 lunar distances... five times the distance from the Earth to the Moon for those who don't talk 'astronomy.')

But there are other places where folks would still have a near cardiac arrest over this information, convinced that something will knock it out of its fairly safe orbit and into us.

Originally posted by Byrd
Eh, since I'm the first to reply, you'd get an almost immediate response that it passes far, far away from us (5 lunar distances... five times the distance from the Earth to the Moon for those who don't talk 'astronomy.')

But there are other places where folks would still have a near cardiac arrest over this information, convinced that something will knock it out of its fairly safe orbit and into us.

I don't know... several minutes went by between when I started this thread and when you replied... and in that time dozens of people looked at the thread... I bet I could, at least, have tricked 10 people into giving all their stuff away if I had written up a big intro about the world ending...

BTW... it's only a matter of time before someone pulls off a believable 'killer asteroid' hoax on ats. Considering that it takes more than five minutes to even write a post that's well-researched enough to calm those who will believe anything.... and considering that any thread gets about ten readers in under twenty seconds...

[edit on 21-12-2004 by onlyinmydreams]

A lot of people believed that Aussie_Bloke fellow... And there have been others. But yeah, you took all the fun out of watching people freak out!

Thanks for the info though. Any idea what its luminosity will be?

Originally posted by cmdrkeenkid
Thanks for the info though. Any idea what its luminosity will be?

2004 VW14
Date: Dec. 24
Miss distance:5 LD
Mag:13

www.spaceweather.com...

So it isn't very bright.

[edit on 23-12-2004 by E_T]