Secret plan to save Earth from asteroid

Secret plan to save Earth from asteroid

au.news.yahoo.com

Russian scientists will soon meet in secret to work on a plan for saving Earth from a possible catastrophic collision with a giant asteroid in 26 years, the head of Russia's space agency said on Wednesday.

"We will soon hold a closed meeting of our collegium, the science-technical council to look at what can be done" to prevent the asteroid Apophis from slamming into the planet in 2036, Anatoly Perminov told Voice of Russia radio.

(visit the link for the full news article)

It ain't no secret when its plastered all over the news now is it?

The asteroid named Apophis isn't that big, only 350m in diametre. How do the manage to locate such small object 26 light years away?
And why a secret meeting? Anyone no what happens when a thermal nuclear weapon is detonated in space?

au.news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

its not 26 light years away. i am quite sure that the asteroid is not moving at the speed of light. if it takes 26 years to get here they must have calculated its trajectory around the sun or something to that nature.

Thanx for the post Spearhead, & the link, very interesting & good to be informed for once. Maybe its a good thing the Russians are in the space race, because I'm not sure we'd have this info if it were up to the Yanks!

And you're right, it aint no secret if its plastered all over the net. So why the "secret" meeting then if we all know about it?

This is an interesting story, but is is also already posted
here

Not trying to be rude but I don't know how you missed it......its on the main page

Apophis has been known for some time, the orbit has been calculated and refined.

www.nasa.gov...
NASA Refines Asteroid Apophis' Path Toward Earth


PASADENA, Calif. -- Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036.

The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields. The new data were documented by near-Earth object scientists Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They will present their updated findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Puerto Rico on Oct. 8.

"Apophis has been one of those celestial bodies that has captured the public's interest since it was discovered in 2004," said Chesley. "Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million."

A majority of the data that enabled the updated orbit of Apophis came from observations Dave Tholen and collaborators at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy in Manoa made. Tholen pored over hundreds of previously unreleased images of the night sky made with the University of Hawaii's 88-inch telescope, located near the summit of Mauna Kea.

You can get more data from the Near Earth Objects Program here.

neo.jpl.nasa.gov...

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