What the? Another close asteroid flyby?!!! 2008 CT1

Hey everybody,
I was just checking Spaceweather.com tonight before bed and saw this as the top story...

ASTEROID FLYBY: That was close. Yesterday, newly discovered asteroid 2008 CT1 flew past Earth only 72,000 miles (0.3 lunar distances) away. Had it struck our planet, the 13-meter wide space rock (similar in size to a school bus) would have done little damage, probably exploding in the atmosphere and peppering some lonely stretch of ocean with meteorites. Maybe next time...

the story is on front page of ...spaceweather.com...

What in the world? I never heard about this...we must be entering an increased period of these things...scary...

Here are some more links on this little guy that snuck by us...

ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

Would have made one heck of a light show had it come through the atmosphere...

Ayy, the Earth seems to be in the middle of a hail storm of asteroids! RUN AWAYY! uh... where? I wonder if we'll get a warning before the next one hits?

reply to post by Hellmutt


I doubt we will get a warning, considering the last three recent ones came close by with little to no warning. The night sky is so vast, there is no way we can keep track of every one of these things...

I was talking with an ex-military that still keeps up with buddies. He says they talk about a lot of close calls that are known about, but will never be released to the public because hit or not, it does more harm than good. Panic, riots, etc. They feel it is better to not hear the gun fire the bullet that hits you.

Of course, take that as you wish, since it is 3rd hand information now.

I also see us being in some kind of asteroid 'storm' of sorts. We are passing or just passed the galactic center, right? The debris could be from any number of scenarios ... but I will leave the sci-fi for another thread


Like the pink hair in the avatar, btw

We are not experiencing an asteroid "storm". We are simply getting better at detecting these objects, and there are more astronomers searching for them.

I have heard it reported that we have only searched the sky for life-ending sized asteroids and only in the 'most likely' approach corridors.

Does anyone know if this is true?

Originally posted by FreeThinkerIdealist
I was talking with an ex-military that still keeps up with buddies. He says they talk about a lot of close calls that are known about, but will never be released to the public because hit or not, it does more harm than good. Panic, riots, etc. They feel it is better to not hear the gun fire the bullet that hits you.

Actually this kind of thing happens all the time, it has been happening and it will keep on happening. It's no secret though, all this information is publicly available. It's just that most people don't pay any attention to it because the mainstream media would rather talk about paris hilton's latest faux pas. You can check out all the upcoming close approaches here: neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

You can also check out the list of possible impactors here: neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

The list is not small at all, as you can see, though the odds of a hit are very very low for any given object. It's no secret though, NASA wants amateur astronomers in the public to know what needs to be observed so that they can collect more data on the orbit of the object in order to refine their predictions. The discoveries from each night are posted on the NEO confirmation page, for amateur and professional astronomers to use to confirm the new discoveries and help plot an orbit:
cfa-www.harvard.edu...

At best you could say that the media doesn't belabor the point on a daily basis because they don't want to panic people who are easily worried, but it's not like the government is hiding anything. In fact I can prove it even further if you think the government would hide the "real" threats - for a few hours in 2004 astronomers thought that asteroid AL00667 could hit earth rather suddenly, less than two days later in fact. It wasn't kept under wraps at all - amateur astronomers were the first ones to realize that this object's roughly calculated orbit should cause it to brighten 40 times in a single day on its way to a potential impact with earth. THEY mailed the minor planet mailing list to let the government know about it and then the government realized there was a 25% chance that it should hit within a day or two. Everyone panicked, they almost decided to start calling up the chain to let the president know about it and clouds obscured all the professionals from observing it. Amateur astronomer Brian Warner had clear skies in colorado and observed the entire area where the asteroid should be if it was going to hit and found it wasn't there, proving that an impact was not going to happen. This is why the government would never hide a possible impact from the public - these things are never for sure and they need all the observations they can get to refine the orbit.

Welcome to the real world

As a few have said here on this thread, this is not unusual. The truth of the matter is that we live in a "cosmic shooting gallery", and the threat of an impact is more a matter of "when" than "if".

Nothing has changed, apart from our ability to detect potentially hazardous objects, and as more are discovered, the general public which is not used to having to deal with what the media has branded an "end of world" type scenario, is bound to become concerned.

Whilst impacts do occur from time to time, and "near-hits" are quite common place, the chances of an impact that is powerful enough to threaten human life or our society is very low in the short term. Don't forget, man has been around for many thousands of years, despite more or less constant bombardment from the skies.

Of course, no one can predict with 100% certainty that the next discovered PHO will not be a global killer, but from the past record of encounters/observations it's clear that such objects are relatively few and far between, and when they do pass by, it's usually not even close to a hit.

I think many people also have a false perception of what is considered "near". For instance, let's say that the Moon-Earth system is represented by a dart-board. With the area of the Earth represented by the bull's eye, and the ring of double-score's around the outside would be roughly representative of the distance to the Moon's orbit. If you picture this, and I think it's even an under representation of just how much empty space there is in the Earth-Moon system, then imagine throwing a dart. It's not all that easy to hit the bull's eye, even when you're aiming for it!

Statistically, major impacts that have world-wide repercussions occur roughly once every 10,000-30,000 years (off the top of my head), and these are the objects that we should be wary of and prepare for. Indeed we are overdue already for the next big one, but it could be another 5,000 years before it comes along. There is no point worrying about it in the mean time. If it was due tomorrow or in two years time, there would be little we could do about it. We do need to start looking seriously at ways to protect ourselves in the long term though.

reply to post by SlightlyAbovePar


Yes - this is pretty much true. It's harder to spot the smaller objects, and there is not much point in trying to track smaller objects that are incapable of causing significant damage to us. It's much better to concentrate our resources looking for the objects that can cause major devastation on a continental or global scale.

To be blunt, there are many PHOs, that are capable of destroying a city, but the chance of a city being hit is low - 2/3 of the world is ocean, and only a tiny area of the remaining 1/3 is densely inhabited. To be even blunter, cities are expendable, though I'm sure the loss of one would be regrettable.

The angle of approach is also a potential worry as you say. The problem is that much of the sky is not monitored due to lack of funding. The biggest gaps are in the Southern sky, and the sky close to where the sun is, since in the sun's glare we are incapable of spotting "smaller" objects until they have passed us already.

There have been proposals to plug these holes, using a network of telescopes in the Southern hemisphere, and launching a space-based platform to sit in a position where it can monitor the part of the sky which would normally be impossible to monitor because of the sun's glare, but as far as I'm aware, there is no funding so far for these projects.

Just like the one that caused the great christmas tsunami a couple of years ago, no one will see it comming, or admit it happened..........

www.surfingtheapocalypse.net...

reply to post by C.H.U.D.


I know it's considered bad for to reply with a one liner but.........please allow me to thank you for your very detailed and obviously knowledgeable post.

I appreciate the time you took to share your knowledge with me and I wanted you to know I read every word; your work did not go to waste!

reply to post by heliosprime


So I looked at that website briefly...I trying to figure out how there is proof that an asteroid caused the great tsunami. I am pretty confident, looking back at seismic data, that it was a massive underwater earthquake. Is there any other proof you can show that validates this claim?

SlightlyAbovePar - you are more than welcome

I'd like to add to my previous post, we should not forget that impacts in the past history of Earth may well be the reason we are having this discussion today, and, in the future they could further our hopes to spread to other parts of the solar system. So they are not all that bad, although like many things in life they are a double-edged sword. A threat like this at the right time *might* be just what we need to get up off our butts and accomplish things we should have done decades ago, as long as it is not part of an NWO type scenario

Above all else, the point I want to make is that s#!t happens from time to time, but life would not be so interesting if it did not, lets face it, so enjoy the ride, and live every day like it could be your last... although it likely won't be - at least not because of an asteroid or comet impact.

I personally wouldn't mind dying in an impact as long as I was the only one to be hurt, and as long as I got to see it coming - what a way to go that would be... we all have to go some time, and that would be a great way to go out with a bang IMO

reply to post by heliosprime


There may well be a danger of an impact causing a tsunami, but I'm with wrangell on this one. Everything points to a shift in crust being to blame for the Christmas Day tsunami. Have you any evidence to support these claims?

This is just a quick response to the guy who posted about the size of the Tunguska object in the other, locked thread. He stated that this object was "about 365 metres across", but the actual size was more like 40 metres.


[edit on 7-2-2008 by Mogget]