Astronomers Gear Up for Historic Asteroid Pass in 2029

space.com...

During the early morning hours of April 13, 2029, observers in Asia and North Africa will have a chance to witness a rare celestial event as an asteroid, 99942 Apophis, passes within 20,000 miles of Earth.

"It's not gonna knock your socks off, and it certainly won't be the brightest object in the sky, but it'll be easily observable with the naked eye," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program.

The approach of an asteroid this large -- Apophis is more than 1,000 feet in diameter -- and this close to Earth occurs only about once every 1,500 years.

Scientists are awaiting the close flyby with mixed emotions: excitement at a unique scientific opportunity and uneasiness that it might be a sign of more ominous things to come.

w0w:

"it'll be easily observable with the naked eye"...

i think this is amazing...

i guess if the earth doesn't end in 2012, we could enjoy this

Thye key word in this event is asteroid "Pass". This indicates that we will noit get hit by the thing.

2012 is the START of the end of the world. The world won't end in a day... Starts in 12/12/2012, and ends in a climactic fireball in September 2029 when Apophis hits us... Flyby is what they tell us to keep the world from panicking and not giving a crap for the next 25 years...

I really do not know a whole lot about this asteroid. I do know however that my astronomer friends are excited and worried about this pass.

THe way i hear it is the chance of a hit in 2029 is about 1 in 10,000. However, when it comes back around in 2036 it more like 1 in 1,000.

Way too small a number for my taste. The lotto is a wopping 1 in 80,000,000. Here we are gambling not with our lives, but with the survival of our societies, maybe even our species.

Originally posted by IronDogg
2012 is the START of the end of the world. The world won't end in a day... Starts in 12/12/2012, and ends in a climactic fireball in September 2029 when Apophis hits us... Flyby is what they tell us to keep the world from panicking and not giving a crap for the next 25 years...

And you are sure of this because???????????

(insert facts here)

You dooms-day-ers will be the death of me.

[edit on 24-8-2005 by one_small_step]

its 1000 feet in diamater, You dont think that even today we have enough techology to annihilate this thing let alone in 24 years

Originally posted by Distortion
its 1000 feet in diamater, You dont think that even today we have enough techology to annihilate this thing let alone in 24 years

Obviously you think we do. You think we have the technology to launch and land a shuttle safely? Cause the US fleet is grounded right now.

How about the technology to land on an asteroid? Cause we lose about half the stuff we shoot at mars.

Tell me, exactly how much would a 5 megaton nuke move a 1000m wide rock?

Originally posted by Quest

Originally posted by Distortion
its 1000 feet in diamater, You dont think that even today we have enough techology to annihilate this thing let alone in 24 years

Obviously you think we do. You think we have the technology to launch and land a shuttle safely? Cause the US fleet is grounded right now.

How about the technology to land on an asteroid? Cause we lose about half the stuff we shoot at mars.

Tell me, exactly how much would a 5 megaton nuke move a 1000m wide rock?

Not sure about a 5 megaton, but what would a 100 megaton bomb leave? Probably not much more than pebbles.

Russian 100 megaton bomb

Probably be quite a spectacular light show.

Originally posted by IronDogg
2012 is the START of the end of the world. The world won't end in a day... Starts in 12/12/2012

I couldn't agree with you more...thats what I have been telling people for years...12/12/2012...not dec 21 2012 like the mayian calendar...but 12-12-2012

If you know well in advance that it may hit, you don't need massive nuclear power to deal with the problem. Just nudge it slightly while it is far away, and that'll send it far off course by the time it passes by. Nuking it is much riskier because it'd fragment and then we'd get bombarded with its chunks. Plus we would no longer have the option of nudging its chunks because there'd be so many of them. We can nudge it while its still in one piece.

Now the question is... how do you nudge an asteroid? Perhaps carefully bump up against its side (perpendicular to its direction of travel) with a rocket then fire the rocket engine (such that the direction of force is towards the surface)? Yes you'd need a rocket to get the rocket there but we can do that. Maybe attach a solar sail to it and gradually pull it in another direction.




[edit on 8/24/2005 by asawa]

Using a nuke on it leaves a chance of 1000 smaller 1-mile asteroids colliding with earth.
Nudging it might be to tough if it moves too quickly. What if we can't intercept it?

Originally posted by Lifeadventurer
Using a nuke on it leaves a chance of 1000 smaller 1-mile asteroids colliding with earth.

Nudging it might be to tough if it moves too quickly. What if we can't intercept it?

We intercepted a comet. Intercepting is easy because it takes months to get the interceptor where you want it. This gives you plenty of time to get the calculations just right and to be sure you fully understand the exact trajectories of the asteroid and interceptor. Now, bumping up against the asteroid might be a bit tricky (esp since it has a small bit of gravity), but the space shuttle used to do this all the time with the ISS and never once rammed into the ISS at some high speed.

ah well, if its gonna hit us it'll hit us. Ill just have my arse in the air when it strikes...