Asteroid 2012 tc4. Thursday Oct. 11 th. only 59,000 miles from earth,

reply to post by Renegade2283


Oops that was what I meant.

Originally posted by Cobaltic1978
reply to post by timetothink

 

Discovered by Pan-STARRS observatory in Hawaii on October 4th, 2012, Asteroid 2012 TC4 will make its close approach to Earth this week.

So 8 days notice effectively. I appreciate space is a large area, but if this was to hit the earth, I would imagine it would cause quite a bit of damage?

This demonstrates how vunerable we are and that's frightening, very frightening!!

Of course we are vunerable, we are just a squeegee on legs. An Earth grazing or direct hit by the smaller rocks will hurt, but not necessarily everybody. The bigger bad stuff, would be better known for a longer time, and would hurt if nothing could be done, but at least we are now at the point of being able to visualise some kind of defense, so there is some comfort there, in fact your sudden annihilation is currently more likely to be Earthbound. So why continue to be frightened of a shadow.

Those wondering about damage can get a bit of info here about another impactor.

Meteor Crater in Arizona was made (they say) by an object 50 meters in diameter. Thats about twice as big. There is no real comparison since the NEO isn't going to hit us...

Wait... if it was, would they tell us?

What about.
Can it hit the Moon.

I mean the moon has been hit like a million times already, isn't it time to get hit again.

20 minutes to closest approach

reply to post by drneville


Phew that WAS a close one....i nearly ducked

Whew, another close call. Glad we dodged the bullet again. Wish I could have seen it pass by though. I'm going to have to invest in a telescope one day. Bet that one put on a great show.

reply to post by timetothink


I'm keeping an eye on meteors,.. things might be speeding up in the script.

Dr. Werner Von Braun tried to tell us.

uncensored.co.nz...

This one got under the radar, while were waiting.

2012 TM79 Oct 9 0.2 LD -- 22 m. Like I said elsewhere, those pesky aliens are throwing stones at us,
No hi-tech stuff needed.
This one was observed 10/10/12, that would be after nearest approach.

spaceweather.com... Follow the link through to JPL.

reply to post by timetothink


59,000 miles is only the width of the world 2 fold and then some yeah I would call that close alright

reply to post by pac221211

why do we just find out about these things at the last second?

That's just how things work, we don't have the capability to detect these things early. We can only detect them when they get so close to us. Maybe in 20 years we will have alot better system to detect these space projectiles. So far though the earth has been a safe haven from asteroids...keep your fingers crossed.

This is great. I am so excited. I hope it comes back!

Maybe with some luck it will hit the Middle East.

reply to post by timetothink


So, was this Asteroid suppose to be a big, huge, special, normal event? Thanks in advance for your help...;0)

reply to post by aytacaksel


Ok, that sucks...I can't see the recorded event unless I give $$ up! I feel so dirty, and it's just not fair dammit. lol No wonder I was having problems trying to get to the recorded event....darn!...

.ey, no worries...I'm sure theres a black market copy somewheres...ha

You know, that this is just more proof of a sobering reality. Something this big, can come in to our inner solar system, Most of them from the direction of our Sun, and we get no clue until almost a week before it could possibly be on a trajectory that can hit the Earth.

Not to be a fear mongerer, but we are just not prepared to deal with something like this , in that amount of time. If Apophis was going to be a threat, then look at the time we would have to put together some kind of defensive plan, but here, all you could do, once the orbital specs were zeroed down to where it would hit on Earth, would be to get the hell away from that place for at least 200 miles, or if near the coast, get yourself inland and at a high elevation.

You cannot compare this to the Flagstaff, Arizona crater, since that was an Iron, and less than 3% of meteors that make it through our atmosphere are these. They punch big holes and if they come in at azimuth angles, make it through the atmosphere like it was not there.

The danger of Rocks (chondrites) around this size, is that they usually detonate in the atmosphere because they cannot take the stress like an iron can. If a large chondrite makes it through most of the atmosphere and detonates in the low atmosphere, say less than say 20 miles up, then we could be in for a Tanguska type event, where the entire fireball and shock wave of the explosion makes it to the ground, causing massive damage. This is the same type of effect that we design into air-burst weapons, because they inflict much more damage to surrounding area because a ground detonation and crater wind up re-directing much of the energy force upward.

If you are aware, this kind of discovery envelope has been fairly consistent over the past 20 years, as large, damaging asteroids that have passed between the orbit of the Earth and Moon, have had very short warning periods.

We desperately need and REQUIRE a global technical effort to respond to this kind of threat, because soon, one of these flying mountains is going to have "To: Earth" labeled on it, and we can do very little about it. As it stands right now, we are overdue for one of these hits, and I know all of us would like to know that there is a reasonable contingency available to deal with it, if we can.

reply to post by tracehd1


Just eventish, if you like sky watching.

reply to post by tracehd1


You can watch the events for free when they are on live.....alas, it's too late......I gave you the heads up, where were you?

Living real life I suppose.


Next time!

Originally posted by Evanzsayz
reply to post by timetothink

 

59,000 miles is only the width of the world 2 fold and then some yeah I would call that close alright

Not to be a stickler in relative sizes here, but you are referencing the (circumference), not the diameter of earth . The circumference is ~25k miles, the width would be D=C / pi, or ~ 7 k miles,

59 k miles being the width of the world ~ 8 fold.

reply to post by charlyv


Well math is the greatest feat of humanity so I will give you that one cheers! Drink up!

Originally posted by Evanzsayz
reply to post by charlyv

 

Well math is the greatest feat of humanity so I will give you that one cheers!

Drink up!

edit on 13-10-2012 by Evanzsayz because: (no reason given)

Cool, having a Guiness.. but certainly not the same in these cans....
Actually, even at 8-fold it is scary to me. There are a lot of rocks out there, and nobody knows just where most of them are.

Cheers back.