Toutatis 12.12.2012 pass..with earth

I am extremly worried with this NEO(near earth asteroid) it buzzed us by surprise in 2004 and came within 963,000 miles of Earth.. this year it will buzz as as well. at 483,370 miles in November. as a comparison the moon in apogee mode is 400,500 miles from Earth. what worries me here is that every time the Asteroid passes earth it's distance changes without warning (like 2004) Nasa had predicted it would pass at 1.5 million miles when itn fact it came much closer at 963,000 miles...which indicates its trajectory is being changed every time it pass Earths gravitational pull\field... it is very possible Toutatis can get caught into a descending orbit on 12.12.2012...now Toutatis is 3 miles long..not enough to be ELE(extinction level event) however if it plunges into one of our oceans it will make the last Tsunamis look like ripples... and if it hits a major city the energy would be equivalent to many Nuclear explosions destroying the city. now since the planet is mostly ocean it is very likely it will hit water... I keep hearing about the Mayans timeline ending 12,21,2012... and one thing we have to ask ourselves what were the Mayans really good at? possibly even better then us?. They were extremely good at tracking celestial bodies in relation to Earth.. . what if they. tracked Toutatis eventual descent to earth?The Mayans had a calender year 365.2420 days long, more accurate than the Julian calendar that we use today which is 365.25.. This is 0.0003 of a day per year too much, .I believe this discrepancy with our inaccurate calender has caused us to believe that the date is 12.21.2012 when if fact may be 12.12.2012.. The Mayans were very good at tracking celestial bodies.. and it may very well be possible they tracked Toutatis and knew it will eventually collide with Earth and when.

Exerpt from Nasa



Excerpt from platery in 2004 when it buzzed us at a distance of over 900,000
can be cut in half in 2012..




Sources

neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

survive2012.com...

echo.jpl.nasa.gov...

[edit on 16-3-2008 by thefreepatriot]

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[edit on 16-3-2008 by Jbird]

This is the closest thing to proving disaster will take place in 2012.
Interesting.

Thanks for the info, im sure we will get hit by a big rock one day.
To bad we dont really know for sure when that will happen.

ELE Could happen 2 minutes from now. They cant track all those rocks, heck, 2 or 3 slipped by last week without a warning.

reply to post by thefreepatriot

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If an object three miles long slams into Earth it wouldn't be an ELE?!

This is a two line post...

reply to post by thefreepatriot

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According to the NEO page you posted, Toutatis was four times closer in 2004 than it will be in 2012, so I think that with that in mind we can dismiss any "2012 end of the world" reference.

And if its orbit changes every time it passes Earth then we do not have any way of knowing at what distance will it pass the next time, right?

I don't think that happens, the fact that the distance is not constant is only the result of different orbits by Toutatis and the Earth.

reply to post by goosdawg

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No, it will make only "local" damages.

A 3 miles long rock hitting Earth on a sedimentary rock area would create a final crater with a 59km (36 miles) diameter and 1km depth.

The heat from the fireball would make third degree burns on people at a distance of 700km (434 miles); the blast would destroy wall-bearing buildings and up to 90% of the trees would be blown down at that distance; the seismic effects would be the same as those of a (Mercalili) scale 4 or 5 earthquake.

If it hits the water (with enough depth, I chose 2000 metres) the volume of evaporated water would be 95.9 km3 (23 miles3). I do not know what other effects (like the resulting Tsunami) would result from it.

All the previous data was the result of using the Earth Impact Effects Program from the University of Arizona.

Firstly you've confused miles with kilometers. The Moon is approx 250,000 miles from us, and the closest approach of Toutatis in 2012 is 0.0686 AU which is about 6.4 million miles.

reply to post by ArMaP

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Well....that's reassuring!

Thanks!

That was my last post before logging off last night, didn't think to run the figures myself.

(I have that site bookmarked since your mention of it on the monster 2007TU24 thread.)

As always, nice work!

Edit to add:




Source | JPL/NASA | IMAGES OF ASTEROID 4179 Toutatis



[edit on 16-3-2008 by goosdawg]

You are wrong I have not confused miles with kilometers.. the moon in apogee is around 400,500 miles from earth.. the article I posted that talked about toutaris was from 2004 some scientist were surprised of it passing by so closely and that was 963,000 miles... I suggest you look at the NASA data link I posted.. and the distance in AU from the Earth which will be .0052 AU in 2012. extremely close. In the event this Asteroid does hit us it will not be the end of the world..however since most World populations live in coastal areas it will be a catastrophe.. I am not one of these doomsayers.. I am merely looking at the facts..

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe

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reply to post by thefreepatriot

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If it was not a catastrophe when it passed at a distance of 0.0104 AU in 2004 why would it be a catastrophe to pass at a distance of 0.0052 AU?

PS: that distance of 0.0052 is expected this year, in 2012 it should be 0.0463

It was very close to being a catastrophe in 2004.. and it came as a surprise when it came at 963,000 miles.. Nasa predicted it will come at 1.5 million miles but it came even closer.. so this is a very unpredictable rock! just keep a look out for it.

reply to post by ArMaP

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If anyone here knows or knows someone that knows how to do a orbit trajectory simulation on Toutatis. I would love to see it.. Any ex Nasa employees here?

reply to post by thefreepatriot

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Fire up your Java; here's a link:

JPL Small-Body Database Browser | 4179 Toutatis (1989 AC)

Based on my maths, .0052 AU is half the distance of .0104 AU. Not saying that .0052 would be catastrophic, but would be more likely than .0104?

I am just glad no one yet has claimed that this object is "planet sized"

Here we go again...
This is the first I have heard of Toutatis coming in 2012. The date does not matter what does is the possibility of this hitting us and the need for preparedness on behalf of all earthlings.
Do I need to worry? What is the truth here guys? No joke really? Toutatis headed our way at the same time the Mayan Calendar predicts the end of humanity?

The moon's apogee is at about 252,000 miles.

Here's a link with some moon stats.

reply to post by VIKINGANT

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Oops, a zero in the wrong place makes a difference.

The real number is 0.0502, as anyone can see on the NEO page from the JPL that thefreepatriot posted on the OP.

The OP is talking utter nonsense. Asteroid 4179 Toutatis did not "take us by surprise" in December 2004. It was discovered in 1989, and the close approach 15 years later had been calculated more than a decade before it happened. In addition, it passed by Earth at exactly the distance that had been predicted. In fact, I was simulating the orbit of this asteroid on my own PC years before the 2004 event !

Oh, and it won't get closer to Earth in 2012 than it did in 2004. The close approach distance on 2012 December 12 will be 0.04633AU (astronomical unit; the average distance of the Earth from the Sun). That's nearly 7 million kms, or FOUR TIMES further away than it was in 2004.

That "getting caught in a descending orbit" is also rubbish. Toutatis is moving in a highly elliptical, heliocentric orbit. There is no way that the Earth-Moon system can capture it through gravity alone. It has way too much kinetic energy.

Can we please get our facts correct before posting misleading information ?

No, the Moon in apogee is 405,000 kilometers from Earth.



A 3 mile wide rock, passing 963,000 miles away is not "very close to being a catastrophe'. The Moon is a 6000 mile wide rock passing at 250,000 miles and therefore at least 4 times more likely to crash into the Earth. Perhaps you should start a thread about the Moon crashing into the Earth in 2012.

The Moon is actually 2160 miles in diameter.

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe

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the moon is not on the same orbit that this asteroid is on... I showed how far away the moon is in order to show that it is possible that the Asteroid can get caught by Earths gravitational field.. the same one holding the moon.. the moon just so happens to be in the right orbit . so that it does not fall onto us..an asteroid that is actually on a trajectory that crosses Earths path and i not in orbit around earth is way different..