Comet is comming fast and huge!!!

Very good link to menu of past mass extinction.

hannover.park.org...

Evidence of other past mass extinctions, including the largest ever.

www.space.com...

A few thoughts on Mass Extinctions
By Madalyn Edwards and Daniella Scalice
NASA Astrobiology Institute


Q: Kindly give me an overview of extinction:

(1) Why do extinctions happen?

Extinction is a frightening concept at first glance. Why do life forms that are vibrant and thriving one minute end up on the cutting room floor the next? How can magnificent creatures such as dinosaurs be cast as extras while the common cyanobacteria continue to receive top billing? In truth why extinction occurs varies greatly. A species may become extinct because the environment that supports its ecological niche is no longer able to sustain a rapidly growing population. Or a new predator may stumble upon a juicy find and wipe out an entire species in one fell swoop.

On a larger scale, numerous species have found themselves on the wrong end of a bad weather front. Climatic changes have initiated many extinction events since life first evolved on Earth. Ice ages (glaciation events), volcanic eruptions, and changes in sea level appear to be the most common culprits. Since species often selectively adapt to particular environments, even subtle changes can leave many struggling to survive. Overall this is a natural process that aligns nicely with the theory of evolution; as one species faces its last scene another gets ready for its close up.

(2) Examples of mass extinctions? (3) What became extinct?

Officially there have been five big mass extinction events over the past 540 million years. What is often not mentioned is that up to five other mass extinctions occurred between 650-500 million years ago. These little publicized events mainly involved microorganisms, and marine animals and plants. They each took place before the Cambrian Explosion (between 543 and 490 million years ago) during which time life forms on Earth exploded into previously unseen levels of diversity. These smaller Pre-Cambrian extinctions were potentially less detrimental than the five main Post-Cambrian events because there were relatively fewer species on the planet to become extinct.

The Earth has not seen the same type of diversification of life forms since the Cambrian Explosion, so the percentage of species lost with these five main extinction events is quite stunning. Between 75-95% of all species were lost with each extinction event. The ecological niche most commonly affected by these mass extinctions involved sea dwelling creatures. Slight changes in temperature, oxygen level, or the sea level itself can and has greatly affected marine life.

(4) Advantages and disadvantages of extinction?

It is probably quite doubtful that expiring species find any comfort in the fact there may actually be an advantage to their demise. The general advantage to an extinction event is that other species are allowed to proliferate due to the loss of a food source competitor or even a predator. Case in point: we humans did not start our evolutionary pathway until many of the large mammals that had dominated the lands became extinct. The disadvantage to extinction is of course that once a species makes its exit, there can be no encore performance. In today's world, species that have yet to be discovered are being lost and their roles in the ecosystem can not be replaced by just any bit player. The part they played was written for them and them only. The cost of losing these characters may take years to understand.

(5) Big questions still to be answered on extinction?

The phenomenon of mass extinctions sets the stage for many questions that have yet to be answered with complete certainty. One big question is whether there is a cyclical pattern to mass extinction events. Within the fossil record - an incomplete script at best - there appears to be a pattern that suggests mass extinction events occur every 26-30 million years. This pattern is thought to be related to celestial objects such as comets and meteors which have long been known to travel distinct paths on very dependable timetables. This could imply that there have been possibly up to 23 mass extinction events since life first evolved on Earth!

(6) The future about extinction - what might happen - when might it happen - why might it happen?

Presently, the certain mystery of future mass extinction events has yet to be solved. Is extinction a predictable phenomenon, or are we at the mercy of a random catastrophe which will burst onto the scene unannounced and carry us away with our neighboring species? How capable are we humans of truly creating a mass extinction, let alone preventing one?

We are indeed all subject to the uncertainty of cause and effect - will our candle be snuffed out before we discover how to guard our flame indefinitely, or will an ill fated breeze extinguish the light of life on Earth forever?

This beautiful blue stage we call home often offers more questions than answers.

THE SECRET RACE TO CONTROL IRAQ'S EXTRATERRESTRIAL HERITAGE

www.exopolitics.org...
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Also the planet X theroy about aliens using gold to repair their atmosphere.

The US is spraying colidial aluminum in ours (similar to gold?). I wonder where they got that idea from?

This is the other asteroid that NASA says wont hit us.

Asteroid Coming, But No Money to Deflect
18-Sep-2002



Despite the fact that asteroid NT7 is scheduled to wipe out much of humanity and send us back to the Dark Ages when it hits us on February 1st, 2060, there is almost no money available for research on how to deflect it. NASA has identified and tracked 2,027 asteroids and comets that might come close to Earth.
The U.S. spends between $3.5 and $4 million each year tracking asteroids and comets that might hit Earth at some point, but once we've found one, there no money on hand to figure out what to do about it. NASA�s Don Yeomans says, "What if you do find one with our name on it, then whose responsibility is it? You assume it would be the military's, but which one?�NASA's charter is to find them and track them. That's it."
Since 1998, NASA has been searching for the largest asteroids, with diameters of .6 miles or more. An asteroid this size could eradicate humans as a species, or send them back to the dark ages, says Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute. But smaller rocks, about 1,000 feet across, could still destroy cities, cause huge tsunami waves and flatten an area the size of New Jersey, according to Erik Asphaug of the University of California at Santa Cruz. "From the point of economic harm and lives lost today, it's probably the [300 yard] asteroid that is the worst," Asphaug says. The likelihood of one of these hitting Earth is 10 times higher than a .6 mile space rock. Compared to natural disasters like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions, the U.S. has made little or no preparation for what to do in the event an asteroid hits us.

Study shows asteroids destroyed life on Earth at least twice
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Asteroids crashing into Earth have virtually wiped out life not once but at least twice, scientists have reported.
An asteroid or comet roughly the same size as the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago did even worse damage 250 million years ago, experts found in a report published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
The evidence comes from space gases trapped in little carbon spheres called Buckyballs in ancient layers of sediment. They show the Permian extinction event, during which most species on the planet disappeared, started with a cosmic collision.
"The impact ... releases an amount of energy that is basically about 1 million times the largest earthquake recorded during the last century," Robert Poreda, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester in New York, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
The comet or asteroid would have to have been 4 to 8 miles (6.5 to 13 kms) across. The jolt roused volcanoes, which buried huge areas in lava and sent up ash to join the dust from the explosion to plunge the world into centuries of unnatural dark and cold.
Trilobites -- strange, cockroach-like creatures that once ruled the planet -- died out completely, all 15,000 species of them. Ninety percent of all marine creatures and 70 percent of land vertebrates went extinct.
"If the species cannot adjust, they perish. It's a survival-of-the-fittest sort of thing," said Luann Becker, assistant professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, who also worked on the paper.
"To knock out 90 percent of organisms, you've got to attack them on more than one front."
The asteroid which wiped out the trilobites was just about the size of an asteroid that left a giant crater on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs.
Unlike with the Yucatan impact, the researchers, who included teams from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and New York University, do not yet know where the giant space object smacked down.
BUCKYBALLS HOLD THE CLUES
What they did find was a layer of little carbon molecules called buckminsterfullerenes, or Buckyballs. Inside these soccerball-shaped spheres were helium and argon gases.
The spheres, gathered at sites in Japan, China and Hungary, lay at the sedimentary layer put down 250 million years ago, between the Permian and Triassic periods.
"These things form in carbon stars. That's what's exciting about finding fullerenes as a tracer," Becker said.
The gases are isotopes, meaning they have a certain atomic structure, that suggests they came from space, the researchers reported.
They fit in with other evidence found from layers dating back to the extinction. For instance, some of the most extensive volcanic activity ever, in what is now Siberia, laid down enough lava to cover the entire planet with 10 feet (three metres) of rock over a one-million year period.
"It was the proverbial blast from the double-barrelled shotgun," Poreda said. "We're not sure of all the environmental consequences, but with both the impact and with the volcanic activity, we do know that Earth was not a happy place. It may be that the combined effects of impact and volcanism are necessary to cause such a tremendous extinction."
But life did come back, giving rise to the rich collection of animals that thrived during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Dinosaurs evolved, as did mammals.
"These two extinctions are like bookends for the age of the dinosaurs," Poreda says. "The P/T (Permian/Triassic) boundary helped to usher in the age of the dinosaurs, and the K/T (Cretaceous/Tertiary) boundary snuffed it out."

somebody said on a local radiostation last night that phobos has gone from mars's orbit, you know anything about if this could be true or false dragonrider?

The "Phobos is missing!" is pure bunk.

Just ask any astronomer. You'll be able to get some nice pictures of it this summer.

this world can prevent anything and do anything if we work together but that will never happen, or at least only in Star Trek

somebody said on a local radiostation last night that phobos has gone from mars's orbit, you know anything about if this could be true or false dragonrider Posted by Blade Runner

I have read the same reports, although I do not know of the accuracy of these statements. I honestly have not researched this one too much. (I am sure NASA will say there is nothing to that, but how much can we trust NASA?)

3 new NEAs found with NEAT this month so far. All of them are PHAs (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids, in excess of 1 km in diameter).

All three are listed as Apollo objects, meaning that they all three will be crossing the earths orbit.

neat.jpl.nasa.gov...

Verry soon the "brown dwarf" that's 1/10 the size of Jupiter, or maybe just a couple of standard issue asteroids will fail to affect life on Earth in any way. All that will be left behind will be a bunch of claims that NASA has lied to us, but that the hinest truth has been sent to us by the Zetans using telepathy. Why couldn't the Zetans just use 802.11a?

Maybe NASA has been telling the truth all along, and it's Coast to Coast that's chuck fulla lies.

well, the same radiostation everyone was phoning saying they could see something next to the moon, so could i, but i couldnt make it out as i didnt have optics, sombody eventually said it was saturn... wish i coulda got a better look, as for the phobos thing i dont even think the moons can be seen with a home telescope im sure mars moons are only 5miles and 10miles in diameter, so even if one had gone, which i doubt, we wouldnt be able to see it without special equipment..

Verry soon the "brown dwarf" that's 1/10 the size of Jupiter, or maybe just a couple of standard issue asteroids will fail to affect life on Earth in any way. All that will be left behind will be a bunch of claims that NASA has lied to us, but that the hinest truth has been sent to us by the Zetans using telepathy. Why couldn't the Zetans just use 802.11a? Posted by Chipolte

Please note that I never endorsed the Planet X theory. I did in fact post a couple of articles relating to such, but since credible information was scarce, I kept that on the back burner as "gee, interesting".

I DO agree that some form of asteroid is in fact closing on this planet. Is it on a collission course or not? We honestly do not know. It is a FACT that NASA is not going to tell us if there is one about to hit us.

The information I collected (posted along in this thread) certainly points to the fact that the fed gov was very nervous about something along these lines, and appears to have taken steps to do something about it.

Doomsday asteroid page, really great articles!

pw1.netcom.com...

The saga of Asteroid 1997XF

On Tuesday, March 10, 1998, Brian Marsden, Director of the International Astronomical Union's central telegram bureau in Cambridge, Mass., announced that celestial object 1997XF, a 1 to 2 mile wide asteroid, could pass within 30,000 miles of Earth in October of the year 2028.

One day later, scientists from NASA's Jet propulsion Laboratory announced that the asteroid would instead miss Earth by 500,000 to 600,000 miles.

JPL's Paul Chodas said that the chance of it impacting the Earth was
"...so unlikely as not to worry about." Essentially, zero.

Do you thnk the scientists really know exactly where this asteroid's going to be 1331 weeks from now! How confident are you about them predicting the exact location of a speeding two mile wide space rock 306 months away?
Think about it.

1997XF isn't the only thing we have to worry about. There seem to be more and more too close encounters all the time. Get to know the near misses, and see what would happen if one of them doesn't miss us after all...


An asteroid discovered just weeks ago has become the most threatening object yet detected in space. A preliminary orbit suggests that 2002 NT7 is on an impact course with Earth on 1 February 2019, although the uncertainties are large.

Astronomers have given the object a rating on the so-called Palermo technical scale of threat of 0.06, making NT7 the first object to be given a positive value.

From its brightness astronomers estimate it is about 2km wide, large enough to cause continent-wide devastation on Earth.

Although astronomers are saying the object definitely merits attention, they expect more observations to show it is not on an Earth-intersecting trajectory.

It was first seen on the night of 5 July, picked up by the Linear Observatory's automated sky survey programme in New Mexico, in the southern US. Since then astronomers worldwide have been paying close attention to it, amassing almost 200 observations in a few weeks.

Dr Benny Peiser, of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, told BBC News Online that "this asteroid has now become the most threatening object in the short history of asteroid detection".

NT7 circles the Sun every 837 days and travels in a tilted orbit from about the distance of Mars to just within the Earth's orbit. Detailed calculations of its orbit suggest many occasions when its projected path through space intersects the Earth's orbit.

Researchers estimate that on 1 February 2019 its impact velocity on the Earth would be 28km a second - enough to wipe out a continent and cause global climate changes.

However, Dr Peiser was keen to point out that future observations could change the situation. He said: "This unique event should not diminish the fact that additional observations in coming weeks will almost certainly, we hope, eliminate the current threat."

According to astronomers NT7 will be easily observable for the next 18 months or so, meaning there is no risk of losing the object. Observations made over that period - and the fact that NT7 is bright enough that it is bound to show up in old photographs - mean that astronomers will soon have a very precise orbit for the object.

Dr Donald Yeomans, of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, told BBC News Online: "The orbit of this object is rather highly inclined to the Earth's orbit so it has been missed because until recently observers were not looking for such objects in that region of space."

Regarding the possibility of an impact, Dr Yeomans said the uncertainties were large. "The error in our knowledge of where NT7 will be on 1 February 2019 is large, several tens of millions of kms," he said.

Dr Yeomans told BBC News Online that the world would have to get used to finding more objects like NT7 that, on discovery, look threatening, but then become harmless. "This is because the problem of Near Earth Objects is now being properly addressed," he said.

www.windows.ucar.edu...=/headline_universe/comet_neat_anim_feb_2003.html

If you look at the animation on the above page you see that there is a large solar burst before it passes the sun and one even greater after. I'm new to this, but Dragonrider: did you say that the HAARP system is capable of manipulating sun "weather", like provoking CMEs or whatever you call it, solar storms? Anyway it seems strange that the sun "chose" to fart at it before and after and not right on if these flares were activated by the gravitation of the comet or whatever. But seen through the let's-manipulate-space-weather-in-order-to-save-the-planet goggles it would make perfect sense not to fart right at it in order to avoid that it goes from being a .22 bullet with a relatively fixed target to an atomic cluster bomb noone knows where would hit.

I do feel that I should fill in with some prophecy material here, though. The Antichrist or the second beast of the Book of Revelation is capable of bringing down fire from Heaven right before people's eyes. This can be understood in a way that the Antichrist/False Prophet is able to predict some sort of meteorite impact, but it can also mean that he has power to drop bombs whenever and wherever he likes... If we look to the Koran for further insight on the matter, Dajjal (Antichrist) has a fire with him that is actually in heaven that he will direct at a rightious man for not believing that he is God. This strengthens the idea that it is some sort of collission course cellestial object he can predict, and that he's a classical science-ateist. The merital journey of Dajjal begins in Syria if I remember correctly and he's supposed to be riding on a white donkey.

Blessings,
mikrom

So, whats the latest on the comet's position? Anyone got any new data? Can it be viewed with optics now?

By PAUL RECER
AP Science Writer

October 4, 2002, 3:26 AM EDT

WASHINGTON -- At least 30 times a year, asteroids smash into the
Earth's atmosphere and explode with the violence of a nuclear bomb.
Now some officials are worried the
natural explosions could trigger an atomic war.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden told members
of a House Science subcommittee that the United States
has instruments that determine within one minute if an
atmospheric explosion is natural or manmade.

But none of the other nations with nuclear weapons have that
detection technology, and Worden said there is concern that
some of those countries could mistake a natural explosion
for an attack and immediately launch an atomic retaliation.

Worden, deputy director for operations of the U.S. Strategic
Command, said there was the risk of such a mistaken atomic exchange last
August when Pakistan and India, both with atomic bombs,
were at full alert and poised for war.

Not far away, a few weeks before, Worden said, U.S. satellites detected over the
Mediterranean an atmospheric flash that indicated "an energy release comparable to
the Hiroshima burst." Air Force instruments quickly determined it
was caused by an asteroid 15 feet to 30 feet wide.

"Had you been situated on a vessel directly underneath, the intensely bright flash
would have been followed by a shock wave that would have rattled the entire ship,
and possibly caused minor damage," Worden said in his testimony.

Although the explosion received little or no notice, the general said it could have caused
a major human conflict if it had occurred over India or Pakistan while those countries
were on high alert.

"The resulting panic in the nuclear-armed and hair-triggered opposing forces could
have been the spark that ignited a nuclear horror we have avoided
for over a half-century," he said.

Worden said the Air Force's early warning satellites in 1996 detected an asteroid burst
over Greenland that released energy equal to about 100,000 tons of explosives.
He said similar events are thought to have occurred in 1908 over Siberia, in the 1940s over
Central Asia and over the Amazon basin in the 1930s.

"Had any of these struck over a populated area, thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands
might have perished," he said.

Worden said early warning satellites do a good job of detecting asteroid bursts in the
atmosphere and that new equipment will be even better. He said the Air Force is working
on an asteroid alert program that would quickly send information
from the satellites to interested nations.

He said the Air Force is studying the establishment of what he called a
Natural Impact Warning Clearinghouse that would be part of the North American
Aerospace Defense Command communications center in Cheyenne Mountain near
Colorado Springs, Colo.

NASA is in the midst of a 10-year program to find and assess every asteroid
six-tenths of a mile or more in size that could pass close to the Earth and might
pose a danger to the planet.

Such asteroids or comets are called "near earth objects" and if one struck the planet it
could wipe out whole countries. An asteroid 1 mile across could snuff out civilizations,
while one that is 3 miles across could cause human extinction, experts say.

Edward Weiler, head of NASA's office of space science, told the House committee
that his agency has detected 619 near earth objects and is finding
about 100 new ones each year. None poses a danger to the Earth.

Worden and others said that smaller asteroids also can be destructive.
For instance, if an asteroid the size of a cruise ship smashed into the ocean it could
cause huge waves, called tsunamis, capable of drowning coastal cities on two continents.

Worden called for a system of instruments and telescopes on land and in space that
could scan the sky to find asteroids down to the size of 300 feet. He said telescopes
and instruments weighing less than 150 pounds could easily be launched to establish
an observing network.

Astronomers spot asteroids thanks to the light they reflect from the Sun, which means that smaller ones are frequently only discovered when they are very close to the Earth and become visible.

A rock approaching from the southern hemisphere could go undetected.

If one of these were on a collision course, that would leave no time to launch a rocket or missiles to try to deflect or destroy it, or even prepare cities for a potential disaster.

Asteroids are often described as the rubble left over from the building of the Solar System.

They orbit the Sun, but the paths are never eternal, for the trajectories can be deflected by gravitational pull whenever the asteroid passes by a planet or goes around the star itself.

Asteroids are a very remote yet real peril, because they move at such speeds that they unleash terrific energy on impact. The Tunguska event was caused by an object estimated to be 60 metres (200 feet) long. It exploded in the atmosphere with the force of 600 times the Hiroshima bomb.




Now, just to make sure we understand the situation:

A rock approaching from the southern hemisphere could go undetected.

we wouldn't be able to detect them, we can't really stop them, and are powerless to their aftermath. an asteroid even a mile wide could set humanity back a couple decades. if something that size hit somewhere in america, the cloud would probably end up covering much of the world, and most of america would be screwed up physically. if not from fire, dust clouds, and famine, then economically, any and all of our nation will be toast.

think, something hits the east coast. most likely a rural area, but still it'd have a large effect on the cities, the shockwaves alone would raise hell, not to mention the explosion itself. dust would destroy crops and stuff, not to mention choke cities. drought would set in, starving us, and it'd make it that much more difficult for the western US to supply the large cities. that is just one scenario. think if the thing hit DC or NYC. hell what if one hit france or somewhere in europe? ahhhhhhh!!!!

however, i think i'd not know i'm going to die. if it was that big. but i'd still like to know if i should try to fight to survive. would it really be pointless to struggle on? live with little food or die? you decide...