Asteroid Alert

Anything of potential damaging size is usually spotted a year or more before a possible trajectory impact, unless of course it hits you on the head. There are real reports of people surviving an meteorite strike though, but they weren't hit in the head, that would change things a bit.

Originally posted by Illustronic
Anything of potential damaging size is usually spotted a year or more before a possible trajectory impact, unless of course it hits you on the head.

Unfortunately that's not true. Remember June 14, 2002? No?
That's because we were lucky.

On June 14, 2002, asteroid 2002 MN, which was the size of a soccer field, passed within 75,000 miles of the Earth. That’s less than one-third of the distance to the moon. Had this object struck the Earth, it would have released the energy of a large nuclear weapon. This was one of the closest encounters we have had since scientists have been keep track.

space.about.com...

What the article doesn't seem to mention is when this monster was spotted: three days AFTER it had passed the Earth.

Originally posted by Illustronic
Anything of potential damaging size is usually spotted a year or more before a possible trajectory impact,

Yeah that will be cool... we can watch our impending doom as it looms bigger and bigger in the night sky Imagine the anarchy when that happens...

Me? I think I know where the entrance to the Mars jump room is

While they are monitoring this new threat, they give 2002 NT7 a rating of “1” on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale.

According to NASA, asteroids big enough to cause catastrophic destruction could theoretically hit Earth every million years, or at longer intervals.

On June 14, 2002, asteroid 2002 MN, which was the size of a soccer field, passed within 75,000 miles of the Earth. That’s less than one-third of the distance to the moon. Had this object struck the Earth, it would have released the energy of a large nuclear weapon. This was one of the closest encounters we have had since scientists have been keep track.

The result of an impact by 2002 NT7 would be destruction of “biblical proportions” as Billy Bob Thornton’s character says in Armageddon, but, don’t panic yet. "One way or another, this thing is coming off the risk page," said Donald Yeomans. He calculates the odds of a strike at about one in 250,000, and says those odds will likely be adjusted even lower.

Sounds like fear mongering. That's a long way away.

I also like the article's succinct calculations of joules produced, "A large nuclear weapon", LOL!

reply to post by DJW001


It posess only the size of a medium house(how much is it?) and it has been around the planet many times before, it passes every six years aorund our planet.

even in June 15 one of 180 mts diameter has passes trough our skies without being noticed.

it won be seeing at daily light, not even in the night unless you have an 8 inches telescope, cause its bearable visible, it has less bright than the weakest star(i mean light emited) in the night.

So nothing happens

reply to post by Amandla


it did passed many times before, it goes round earth avery 6 years, just fear mongering

in june 15 an asteroid 15 times bigger passed near earth an noone caught attention to it, cause it happens all the time and unless it has many kilometers in size doesn`t change anything

reply to post by chrismicha77


it has been going around earth amny times before.
it passes trough every six years period.

Nothing to care about, it would just desintegrate in the atmosphere if it came up close

reply to post by jyze420


LOL!! It`s been said that reptilian aliens are heading to earth in an asteroid or planetoid... could this be maybe turn out as analien mini bus?:lol

reply to post by Illustronic


I don't know about fear-mongering (the people who write for that website are required to be demonstrably proficient in their area of expertise, because the competition is HUGE). But the fact remains that the Friday, June 14, 2002, soccer-field-sized asteroid was spotted on the Monday AFTER it had passed by the Earth. Three days after what was a very close encounter. It's a fact.

I remember seeing the ticker on CNN. The news appeared maybe three times during that day, and then it disappeared. Whoever was interested in this asteroid had to research it more or less by themselves.
(And I did.)

GIANT ASTEROID TO 'NARROWLY MISS' EARTH - A newly discovered asteroid the size of an office block will narrowly miss the Earth on Monday - coming 23 times closer than the moon.

Source

Isn't it fascinating how the msm is manipulating facts and words to make everything sound more dramatic..?

wow a lil to close if you ask me, but glad its only close and not hitting us

We've recently entered a cloud of space dust in the last several years. This will most likely affect the Sun and planets by increasing their mass which affect the orbits of objects around the Sun. This cloud may also contain unknown asteroids or alter the path of existing asteroids. Bottom-line, I suspect an asteroid collision sometime in the near future.

Originally posted by Illustronic
Everything really cool seems to happen in the southern hemisphere, where like 15% of earth's people live, DRAT!

I want pictures, (or it didn't happen), joking.

Cool heads up dude.

If you can write me some custom software I'll provide you with images of it lol. In theory I could see it a matter of hours before the moment of closest approach (when it's still about 4 times as far as our geosynchronous satellites). The problem is it's going to be moving so fast that it won't stay on any one pixel long enough to collect enough light to see it. The only way to see it will be to track with its motion. I can predict the motion, and my telescope can track that fast with ease, the problem is writing a program to read the prediction file and translate that into commands to send to the telescope at the appropriate time. My satellite tracking software can't handle objects with earth-relative eccentricities >1, in other words, objects that do not orbit earth.

Originally posted by DJW001
reply to post by zorgon

 

Now why would they want to make incoming space rocks CLASSIFIED?

It's not the space rocks that are classified, it's the spy satellites that spot them! Data from other sources is still readily available.

I'd like to add to that, the spy satellites referred to in the story about "incoming rocks" being classified were spy satellites pointed at earth. All they were seeing were fireballs from rocks already hitting the atmosphere. It's a real stretch to call it classifying "incoming" space rocks since they were already burning up when they were detected. The data was completely useless for detecting incoming objects that are still out there. For that you need a widefield and very sensitive telescope staring out into space. Fortunately there are many such telescopes doing just that, which is how this particular asteroid was found.

From spaceweather.com:

Astronomer Rafael Ferrando recorded the streaking space rock on June 25th using a 16-inch telescope at the Observatory Pla d'Arguines in Segorbe, Spain.

The size and times have changed now....

www.foxnews.com...

www.csmonitor.com...

technology.gather.com...

it is now believed to be between 29ft to 98ft.

More news here -

more news

Earth encounter 27th June 2011, date of discovery of this body...........

22nd June 2011.

reply to post by DJW001


By no way to explain it this picture of the trajectory of the so said asteroid makes me think about the comet Nibiru/Elenin or whatever you call it. I know it is not the same thing we are talking knowing that a comet and an asteroid aren't the same things.

Look at the trajectory of both and a similarity is definitely here. Just tought I should post it.


Thruthseek3r

reply to post by thruthseek3r

By no way to explain it this picture of the trajectory of the so said asteroid makes me think about the comet Nibiru/Elenin or whatever you call it. I know it is not the same thing we are talking knowing that a comet and an asteroid aren't the same things.

Look at the trajectory of both and a similarity is definitely here. Just tought I should post it.

Why does everything remind you of Nibiru? The only similarity is that as the asteroid approaches the Earth, it's trajectory is pulled into a parabolic shape temporarily. Do all curves look the same to you irrespective of size and eccentricity? You might want to learn something about basic geometry and work your way up to celestial mechanics.

Just acquired an image of the asteroid from a telescope I rented in Chile. It's the streak in the center of the image.